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This gripping sequel picks up the story of Charlie's wartime experiences through a series of cinematic, action-packed flashbacks. Although McKay's choice of a picnic conversation with Claire as the narrative frame seems a little forced, her portrayal of life in the trenches is as graphic and poignant as ever. The constant noise of shelling, the stench of unwashed flesh, and the "foul black sludge" of the trench floor with its "water-resistant rats" (huge from feasting on dead soldiers) permeate each page of this moving testament to the young men who lived and died on the front lines.
With his eye for a pretty girl and gritty determination to do right, Charlie is a thoroughly likeable hero, and the second instalment of his overseas adventures is even more exciting than the first. Too young to enlist, Charlie serves as a stretcher-bearer and a medical assistant until a fateful encounter with a pompous British pilot lands him in a field behind enemy lines. Before long he's masquerading as a German soldier in a French tavern and waving his underwear as a sign of truce in the middle of no man's land. Charlie Wilcox's Great War may not attract as much critical attention as its predecessor (which won the Geoffrey Bilson Award and the Violet Downey Book Award, among others), but it's certainly just as rewarding. --Lisa Alward
Review
Either as a sequel or on its own, Charlie Wilcox's Great War is an outstanding success. McKay tells the bulk of Charlie's story through his own recollections, once he's safely home again in 1919. The novel opens as he lands in Brigus after three years away and begins to pick up the threads of the old life.
But he has changed, thinks Claire, the girl whom Charlie left behind; he is "older in his heart somehow." As they struggle to reconnect, her need to know about the war meshes with his need to unburden his heart, and over the course of a long afternoon, he tells her his story.
It's an epic story that's also touchingly human in its graphic details, fleeting friendships and innate responses to danger. One memorable example is Charlie's unscheduled flight over occupied France in a two-seater biplane piloted by teen-aged, toffee-nosed twit. They are, of course, shot down, and manage a hair-raising and hilarious escape with the help of two friendly barmaids. Outrageous as this adventure may sound, it's par for the course in Charlie Wilcox's Great War.
But even for a teen-ager war can be hell, a fact which McKay's overriding message makes clear. Her hero survives, but several of his comrades do not. And falling sick while in the trenches, or hoping to stay alive until nightfall while hanging on the barbed wire of No Man's Land, are experiences that no human being should have to undergo. Charlie Wilcox finds his courage on the battlefield, but no one who reads this fine novel will want to go and do likewise.
Pat Barclay (Books in Canada)
-- Books in Canada
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Charlie Wilcox's Great War,
By Charlene Forrest (Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Charlie Wilcox's Great War (Mass Market Paperback)
This was a great book for my thirteen year old son he is not what you would call a reader but really enjoyed this book.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Charlie Wilcox Great War,
By Fats (Mexico) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Charlie Wilcox's Great War (Mass Market Paperback)
It was baaaad mew mew mew mew mew mew mew mew mew mew mewc/: dos
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