These Days | Lucy Caldwell

It's not secret that I'm a real sucker for World War II novels, particularly about women. But in all the novels I've read--and there have been dozens--I don't think I've read a single one about the Belfast Blitz. And since I've not yet traveled to Ireland, I really had no idea. Consider myself enlightened by Lucy Caldwell and These Days.

The Belfast Blitz consisted of four bombing raids in Northern Ireland in April and May 1941, including one on Easter Tuesday. This portion of The Blitz caused some of the war's highest loss of life and injury and destruction--nearly 1,000 deaths and 1,500 injuries; and over 6,300 homes destroyed or badly damaged (50,000 more homes sustained some damage). It was a massive attack over a very short period of time.

The story centers around two sisters, Audrey and Emma, who are looking for love in different ways and who are being forced out of girlhood and into the harshness of wartime adulthood by their circumstances. Audrey is engaged to be married to a young man who is, like her father, a physician; Emma is involved in a new and secret relationship with a woman. The relationship of their parents also figures into the story, and other people in their neighborhood echo the themes. There are parallels and tangents that make the story poignant. The story is also a love letter to Belfast, specifically, but also the idea of loving and wanting to protect your home town.

The writing is quite nice. There's a lot of dialogue but no quotation marks which I like. Here's a paragraph that jumped out at me:

He looks at her. She sees in his face the young man he was, the old man he will be, as if they are all accordioned there, all at once, as it there is no such thing, really, as time.

Caldwell has a long list of literary prizes, including the EM Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her body of work to date. I haven't read any of that other work, but this novel makes me want to.