HELD tells us a story that starts with John's point of view while he is in WWI, fighting then injured then thinking he's dead and memories flash in front of his eyes. We meet him again when he survives and returns home to wife Helena, they open a photo studio while John suffers PTSD in silence. We also briefly meet Helena when she's 60 years old has a daughter and is widowed.
We also meet Anna, Helena's daughter, and her family. Most of all we meet various people and their memories which they've held on to. It is people, moments, memories of our loved ones, and of ourselves in important or impacting moments.
The book has no structure you are used to or familiar with, however, once you start and keep reading you'll realise it's better the way it's narrated. It felt like a long conversation one might have with friends, even just strangers or with one's own self. There are moments that are done beautifully and times when you'll be horrified, overwhelmed, and baffled. There's a lot of love, yearning, longing, and emotions you might not expect or be ready for but you'll face them and get through it. That's the kind of book this is. It will make you feel a lot, good or bad depending on how you want to take it, especially the first quarter once the time of what's ahead is set.
Also, I was surprised by the occurrence of Marie Curie in the story, towards the end. I would love for you to pick up a copy especially if you are in the mood for some introspection or even remembering some old loves.
A breathtaking and ineffable new novel from the author of the international best sellers Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault—a novel of love and loyalty across generations, at once sweeping and intimate
1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night.
1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts with messages he cannot understand.
So begins a narrative that spans four generations of connections and consequences that ignite and reignite as the century unfolds. In radiant moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.
Held is affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom, and compassion, a novel by a writer at the height of her powers.
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