Somewhere in France Book

Somewhere In France, John Rolfe Gardiner's novel about a family torn apart by the trials of World War I, recalls Leo Tolstoy's celebrated aphorism, "All happy families are alike, but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion." At the height of the war, William Lloyd, a doctor from a notable New York family, is writing from a military hospital "somewhere in France" to his wife, Emma, back home. In order to escape the great outbreak of influenza in the U.S., the family has fled the city for Moriches, their Long Island estate. Here, his three children have discovered a trove of candid letters that their father wrote while he was in boarding school. In an author's note, Gardiner tells us that his own grandfather's letters about his service in France during the Great War were the seed of this novel. But Gardiner has turned these stories into a tableau for greater metaphysical musings on God and nature, as in this missive from William to his wife: Thanks to you, Emma, I have the Emerson at my bedside. I hope you've bought another copy so that you and the children will not be without his advice.... The boys especially should have another go at these essays.I believe they went right over Willie's head on his first try. And Louis may have been too cocky to listen to anyone's counsel. Keep reminding them that Nature manifests the rules for their conduct. That's the key to it all. They've just got to open their eyes to Nature, God's first Bible. Soon, however, his letters reveal his growing obsession with a mysterious, and scientifically gifted, French nurse: "At the Bagnoles de l'Orne, Lloyd was forced to see Jeanne as the daring other half of himself. Informal and spontaneous to a fault, the side of himself he had been trained against." Not surprisingly, the family buckles under the strain of his prolonged absence. Even once he returns, his wife finds him hard to reach: "If his mind was in France, she could wait for its reunion with his body here in America." Gardiner writes superb dialogue and expertly sets his characters in their place in time. His fourth novel is suffused with melancholy for a lost era of chivalry and class privilege, buried forever by the Great War. --Ted LeventhalRead More