Wish You Were Here

 by  Graham Swift

                          

This book is in essence very English and contemporary.

Everyone remembers watching on TV some years ago the distressing  scenes of culling of cattle in England . A preventive measure against the spread of Mad Cow Desease and then Foot and Mouth.

Everyone saw the harrowing scenes of the repatriations of the remains of loved ones who were killed in Irak in the preventive war waged against weapons of mass destruction.

No writer ever took those facts as subject matters in a book.

In the first case, for the family featured in the book , the mandatory culling of cattle meant ruin and the end  of life as dairy farmers in Devon.

A father and his two sons . The father takes his own life. The farm is sold.

 Jack, the eldest, shaped by the land he belongs to, «  had gone into caravans » : with his wife Ellie, they become managers of a holiday caravans site in the Isle of Wight.

Tom, the youngest, «  had gone into battle » in Irak.

After Tom’s death as  a soldier on the battlefield, Jack has to face the whole official procedings of repatriation in England.

  For two long days, Jack  tells us about his family history and, above all, revalues his relationship with his wife .  She resents the fact that , because of Tom’s death, they have to cancel a holiday in the Caribbean.  She selfishly decides to take no part in Jack’s sorrow and lets him go all alone to the official ceremonies.

Is it the end of Love ?  « Wish you were here » said Jack…..

The suspense is kept until the end of the book.

The writer succeeds in putting the reader in the skin and mind of  people who used to live a solitary life in the country, who had to change the course of their life .

He explores the relationship between  father and sons, between brothers and the theme of jealousy in a couple.

After discussing the book, even those who didn’t quite like it in the first place, changed their opinion !

                                                                                                                Anne Van Calster