Lest We Forget - Canadian War Fiction

It is truly important the we never forget the horrors and travesties of war.

While history books and documentaries are invaluable in educating us all about the effects of war, fiction too can play an effective role in helping to ensure that we do remember the far reaching impacts of war.

Listed below are three recent novels with a Canadian wartime focus:

Hero by Paul Butler

"On the morning of July 1, 1916, Lieutenant Simon Jenson, shellshocked and demoralized after a year and a half in the trenches, makes a life-altering mistake. But with his actions misinterpreted, he is celebrated as a hero. When Simon returns from the war, his wife, Sarah, and daughter, Lucy, find him emotional fragile and prone to violent rages. Caught up in her own grief and loss, Elsa, the Jensons' governess from St. John's, is thrust into the middle of the family's turmoil. Only when one of Simon's fellow soldiers turns up and casts the shadow of blackmail over them all does unexpected change force its way into their lives."--Back cover.

What is Left The Daughter by Howard Norman


"Seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when his parents, within hours of each other, jump off two different bridges--the result of their separate involvements with the same compelling neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring actress. The suicides cause Wyatt to move to small-town Middle Economy to live with his uncle, aunt, and cousin Tilda. Wyatt's account of the astonishing--not least to him--events leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out twenty-one years later. It's a confession that speaks profoundly of the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with both despair and hope, to an audience of one."--Inside jacket.


The Brother's Keepers: the Great War odyssey of Sable MacInnes and his brothers, by John E. MacNintch

"The Brother Keepers" is a sweeping epic of Sable MacInnes and his brothers who bond during the escapades of youth in bucolic, Nova Scotia, each designated as his brother's keeper by their Baptist Minister father "The Old Gent." Sucked into the vortex of the Great War, sniper Sable, his stretcher-bearer/piper brother Ian and their infantryman brother, Fraser, struggle through the horrors of the major battles of human attrition, witnessing history first hand as soldiers of the Canadian Corps, one of the most elite fighting formations of shock troops of the Western Front."--Inside jacket.


The Factory Voice, by Jeanette Lynes

"It's 1941 and World War II is raging. At a military aircraft factory in Northwestern Ontario, mysterious events are endangering lives. Against this backdrop, the desires, the dreams and the changing lives of four strong, engaging women play out."--Back cover.