In the StoryThe Wounded Man of the Somme
He returns from the Somme. The wife and daughter he asks for do not exist. In a world ravaged by war, Marthe Lenoir meets a man whose wound is more than physical. He remembers a family, a home, a life waiting far from the front. But the names lead nowhere.
Open the novel ↗A moment in the opening pages
They occupied drawers, ledgers, boxes tied with string that no one dared set on the floor. They left behind razors whose blades had rusted inside leather cases, broken pipes, First Communion medals, two-sou coins sewn into a lining, and above all photographs. These troubled Marthe more than anything else. A watch could be numbered. So could a wedding ring. A photograph looked back at you.Read the excerpt ↗