Book #61: The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

I am a big fan of the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear, so when my friend Loralee mentioned that Winspear had written a standalone novel about WWI, I decided I had to read it. It became available pretty quickly at the library, so I got the chance to read it faster than I thought I would. And it didn't disappoint! Winspear does a fantastic job of creating the world in which her characters live in WWI. I love how she focuses on this time in world history in all of her books. It is always mind-blowing to me how little I really know about that whole era, how little I've really learned about WWI in history classes throughout my life. The Maisie Dobbs books were some of the first to introduce me to WWI and the time period after the war, to really make me aware of how traumatizing and significant that experience was for everyone who lived at that time. Everyone, EVERYONE was affected by this war, which is so different than the wars that go on today.

This novel follows the love story of Kezia and Tom Brissenden, a brand-new married couple who settle in on Tom's family farm to live before the war breaks out and Tom leaves to fight in France. They are an adorable, wonderful couple, who are sweet and deeply in love with each other despite the fact that they have different backgrounds (town girl, country boy). When Tom leaves, Kezia is left in charge of the farm and has to learn to take care of it on her own, and she and Tom write each other long letters, in which what's left out is almost as important as what is left in. I loved the look at how Kezia and Tom both write their letters and self-edit to take out things that will worry the other or make them upset. (I almost want to use it as an example in my class; it's a fantastic look at how the rhetorical situation--the purpose of a letter and the audience of that letter--affects what you write and how you write it!) I loved also how Kezia would write long, detailed letters about imaginary meals she would make for Tom and how she prepared them, and how he would daydream about her food after reading her letters. There is also the side story of Tom's sister, or Kezia's best friend, Thea, and how she ended up at the front driving ambulances at the same time.

The one thing I didn't like about the book is the ending. No spoilers here--just in case--but it's not too difficult to imagine that it's not a fairy-tale happy ending (it's WWI, for heaven's sake). I don't know what I wanted to happen for the end, but it seemed a little sudden and not detailed enough to explain what really happened to everyone--and it wasn't the fairy-tale happy ending I wanted! But all in all, it was definitely a good read and I loved the angle Winspear took with this book.