On finishing a Lesley Glaister novel, I’m always surprised that she’s not usually spoken of in the same breath as some of our foremost British novelists. Not only can she plot a gripping story but her choice of language is always so apt, her characters so real and her narrative so memorable. In ‘Blasted Things’ Glaister goes back to the early twentieth century to focus on the scars, both physical and mental, borne by those who have been caught up in the ceaseless death and destruction of the First World War. Between them Vincent and Clementine, the central characters in her novel, have experienced terrible loss: of lover; of identity; of place in the world. This suffering makes them vulnerable to rash decisions and misunderstandings which have fatal consequences. From the outset, the reader feels for Clem. Having lost Powell, a Canadian surgeon and the love of her life in France where she served as a field auxiliary nurse, she returns home to marry her respectable doctor fiancé, Dennis. The latter is condescending, controlling and patronising – a product of his age, his old-fashioned ways perhaps exacerbated by the fact that he fought the war by working in a hospital ‘at home’. Constrained, with a baby she finds hard to love, she meets Vincent and, strangely, there is something about him of Powell that draws her to him. Vincent, a former door to door salesman who rose to the position of sergeant in the army, is so physically damaged by the war that he wears a prosthetic mask covering one side of his face. Reading Clem as a soft touch, he accepts her offer of payment for his motorbike repair. After all, she caused the accident, didn’t she? Nevertheless, this is not the end of their financial association and the pair meet clandestinely on several occasions. Whilst it would be easy to make Vincent into a pantomime villain, Glaister gives us a much more nuanced portrayal of a man unravelling through no fault of his own. In 1920s England, he is an unwanted reminder of the damage caused by war. This is a very moving novel. Glaister explores why vulnerable people tell themselves the stories they do. She reminds the reader of the constraints and constrictions women of all classes faced in the early twentieth century, seen in proprietorial terms even by those who love them. She writes of the aspirations that war kills and the corrosive secrets that damage the possibility of a bright future. Whilst many of the characters are flawed, there are no easy judgements to be made. At the end of the novel, whilst Clem’s paper boats may drift calmly away downstream, the reader understands that her future is unlikely to be so tranquil. My thanks to NetGalley and Sandstone Press for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

An absorbing, beautifully written book that stays with you long after the reading is finished. The story centres on a very young nurse working in a field hospital in Flanders during the Great War. She sees, hears, smells and lives things that cannot help but stay with her forever, and affect the relationships she forms after the war is over. The story is darkly gripping, but has an appealing innocence too, along with an underlying tension throughout that keeps the reader engaged. All the characters are realistically drawn and make themselves visible to the reader - to my mind the mark of a very fine writer indeed.

Clementina and Vince have very little in common except wounds from their time serving as nurse and soldier on the front World War I, some wounds visible and some not. The story follows their chance meeting after the war (in 1920) and the dramatic and unexpected changes this will make to both their lives. The novel is easy to read while also beautifully poetic (‘Champagne and glasses and a stack of toasts, thin and crisp as autumn leaves’), the characters vivid and entertaining - the pub landlady Doll was a highlight - and the plot is fast-paced and unpredictable. I haven’t enjoyed a novel this much in ages…. (or has a novel made me cry as much!). Very much recommended. Another enjoyable gem from the underrated Lesley Glaister...

Structured in three parts – Before, During and After – the opening chapters of Blasted Things transports the reader to the mayhem and horror of a Casualty Clearing Station close to the Front and the Allied trenches in 1918. The job of nurses like Clementine (Clem) and the other medical staff is to ‘patch up’ the wounded for the journey to hospital; many of them will not make it, dying on the operating table or from infection. The sheer awfulness of what Clem witnesses – the results of what human beings can do to other human beings – is vividly depicted. I loved the imaginative metaphors, such as the descrption of the sounds Clem hears as she lies exhausted on her bunk in her cramped quarters: ‘the rat-tat-tat of gunfire, rapid and snippy like the keys of two vast, duelling typewriters battering out threats to each other in a paper sky’. Snatched moments of joy are intense and serve as a temporary distraction. Just how temporary, the reader will discover. The dramatic event which ends part one of the book is conveyed in a quite remarkable way. Part two of the book, set in 1920, sees Clem, now married and with a young child, suffering the after-effects of her wartime experiences. Taking the form of something between shellshock and post-natal depression, it brings Clem to the brink of a monstrous act. She spends the next few months confined to bed, isolated and in a drug-fuelled haze as a result of the medication prescribed by her doctor husband, Dennis. ‘Months, months after months, a blur. Fingers on the arms, a steel shaft in a vein, sparkle of drug in blood, limbs loose, child cries, someone always looking in…’ Clem imagines her brain as ‘a house with an upstairs room and a basement: the basement locked with a long, serious key’ containing the traumatic memories she dare not face, the memories Dennis urges her to put behind her. Gradually, Clem recovers but she finds herself restless – ‘There is not enough – though enough of what she was not clear’ – and finally determined to assert herself. Chance brings an encounter with Vincent Fortune, left with severe facial wounds by his time in the trenches. Clem is drawn to him by a resemblence – real or imagined – to someone she once cared about deeply. The mask Vincent wears seems as much a way of concealing the baser aspects of his nature as a means of hiding his injuries. Yet, as we learn more about his background, his wartime experiences and impact of his injuries, he becomes a slightly more sympathic character. I was especially touched by his pathetic devotion to his landlady, Doll, imagining his feelings are returned despite all evidence to the contrary. The events that follow will have consequences for Clem, revealing an unexpected source of love and loyalty, but even more so for Vincent. His is a story of misfortune, not fortune, and the final sections of the book will surely tug at the heartstrings. As Clem observes at one point, ‘It was normal to be damaged these days, visibly or not’. Blasted Things explores the multiple ways in which that damage can manifest itself and the struggle to overcome it, if indeed it ever can be. The book left a deep impression on me both for the quality of the writing and the power of the story it tells.

I was sent a copy of Blasted Things by Lesley Glaister to read and review by NetGalley. I love Lesley Glaister’s writing, she really knows her characters and manages to get the reader right inside their heads. No matter what the era that one of her novels is set or who the protagonists are the insight into the human psyche is astonishing. I for one get totally involved in the stories she weaves and this is no exception. Well crafted and emotive this is a story of love, loss, guilt, shame and conscience. A well earned 4 stars, teetering on the brink of 5.