They Survived the War.
Will They Survive the Wedding?
Homefront--A Story of Love and War, by Geraldine Boyce, is a gentle and strong novel that centers on a well-off British family before, during, and after World War II. The father, Philip Bartlett, is the son of a shopkeeper and now a successful businessman employed by a pharmaceutical company. The older daughter, Gwen, is a nurse in London. These two characters are well drawn, but the two primary characters in this story are the younger daughter, Jenny, and especially the mother, Eleanor. They are intelligent, caring people, but both of them are strong-minded and they are in conflict about Jenny's future.
At the beginning of Homefront, Jenny has fallen in love and plans to marry an American, Harrison Sanders, whom she met when he was stationed in England during the war. Her parents are against the marriage because it will take Jenny from them to live faraway in California. But in 1947, Harrison returns to England to claim his bride.
Eleanor is heartbroken when the young couple go ahead with their marriage plans. During the wedding she sees members of five families in the church with whom they spent many holidays before the war and she is comforted by their strength. The book launches into a reminiscence of those idyllic times at the seaside resort of Whitney Bay.
When the war begins, each family confronts its own battle to survive. But their continuing friendships sustain and give them courage to handle their fears and heartbreaks and adjust, often with good humor, to the hardships of a devastating war. To some extent, Homefront is an exploration of how the British character changed and grew.
Geraldine Boyce (a pseudonym) grew up in England. She now lives and writes in Marin County, California, where she and her husband raised four children. |
