Silent Parts

By John Charalambous

Every family has its secrets,and the Lamberts have Uncle Harry, who fought in World War I but never came home from France. Each Lambert relative now clings to a different story. Harry died a hero's death on the battlefield. Harry married a sweet French girl. Harry drowned in the mud in Gallipoli. Harry was a coward who ran from the enemy. As his great niece Julie struggles to properly research Harry's fate, she sees how easily history can be rewritten. Slowly she uncovers an awkward boy growing up in turn-of-the-century Australia, an obedient son caring forhis aging mother,and finally a 40-year-old bachelor heading off to the European theater as a reluctant soldier.Eventually she finds evidence that Harry was called to the front—after serving in a post out of harm's way—and on the way he madea decision that changed the rest of hislife.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Queensland Press
• Release date: Apr 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9780702238185

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Reviews for Silent Parts

[siri51 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book - not often I enjoy a novel set in WW1 - a baker deserts when called to the front, befriends a French woman and later doesn't want to return home. The parts set in 1968 of the family planning a reunion trying to find out what really happened to Harry, was at first a distraction from the main story but it was also important to understand the attitudes of the family at the time (not wanting to know about his desertion and dying in an accident in France 10 years after the end of the war) somehow changing it to a heroic death on the battlefields.John is a talented writer. Odd title - Harry's War might be better.

[sally_cripps-172147 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found this a lot slower moving and less interesting than his first book, Furies. The story alternated between now and then and had many points of view, to look at the difficulties of recreating the past, and knowing all about a person. So we had young Julie in the present day, writing to various relatives to find out what she can about Uncle Harry to present at a family reunion. Either she meets with ignorance, longheld views that resist change, or deliberate obfuscation by those interested in preserving the family's honour. Then there is lumpish Harry, almost girlish in the way he does his mother's bidding, ordered up to the front in WWI France. Recreating what happened next takes up most of the story. I never felt that Harry had much emotion or feeling to him, and I kept worrying that all the different characters would have an important role, which I couldn't keep track of. It ultimately fell a bit flat for me.