The Soldier's Return - Softcover

Melvyn Bragg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340767278 ISBN 13: 9780340767276

Publisher: Trafalgar Square, 2000

Synopsis

When Sam Richardson returns from World War II to Wigton in Cumbria, he finds little has changed, as far as his own limited prospects go. In his absence, though, his young family has changed immensely, and Sam struggles to adjust to life in peacetime.

About this title

About the Author

Melvyn Bragg is the author of sixteen novels including the bestselling Credo and The Maid of Buttermere, and of several works of non-fiction including Speak for England, an oral history of the twentieth century, and Rich, a biography of Richard Burton. He was born in 1939 and educated at Wigton's Nelson Tomlinson Shool and at Oxford where he read history. He is controller of Arts at LWT and President of the National Campaign for the Arts, and in 1998 he was made a life peer. He lives in London and Cumbria..

Review

Paradoxically, one of this era's most ubiquitous media voices writes with tremendous empathy about the vanished culture of least said, soonest mended ... one of the tautest and fiercest of Bragg's fictions, alongside FOR WANT OF A NAIL, THE HIRED MAN and THE MAID OF BUTTERMERE.' -- Independent 'Reads like Lawrence without the lunacy and stodginess. It packs an emotional punch that will even have cynics sobbing by the last page. All of us hanker after unconditional love, the memory of our father's arms around us. THE SOLDIER'S RETURN feels like the book Bragg was born to write' -- Time Out 'Sympathetic, touching, infinitely believable...this is a highly accomplished novel' -- Literary Review 'Strong, straightforward, explicit, evocative ... a very good novel ... It is common to compare Bragg to Hardy, Lawrence and Housman as a novelist of place, but more than anyone he reminds me of JB Priestley. He has the same much underrated strengths' -- Daily Telegraph 'Bragg recaptures a place and society utterly lost to us today...A great achievement... THE SOLDIER'S RETURN is about the turmoil of those who, while fully aware of what is going on inside themselves, remain inariculate not because they are unaware of their thoughts and feelings, but out of stoicism and self-respect - out of an inborn triat which they perversely foster, on the assumption that this approach to life will cause less suffering in the end. It is a good subject for a novelist to explore, and Melvyn Bragg does it most impressively' -- Guardian

Edition details

• Publisher: Trafalgar Square
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0340767278
• ISBN 13: 9780340767276
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 384