Wake by Anna Hope

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Two year after the Great War, in which a million British people had died, the government decided to exhume a number of unidentified bodies from four major war sites in France and choose one at random to be the Unknown Warrior, a symbol for all those fallen soldiers, many still unidentified, to represent the loss and sacrifice of the nation.
Anna Hope’s novel tells of the process of the choosing of the Unknown Warrior interspersed with the tales of three people affected by their own war stories and loss.
Hettie is a young girl, a dance instructress at the Hammersmith Palais, hired out to men at 6d a dance, dreaming of romance and love but at home she has a brother back from the front, Fred, who isn’t the annoying, noisy Fred form before the war. This Fred doesn’t seem to be able to do much anymore, with his glassy eyes stares, monosyllabic replies and nightmares that wake the whole house.
Evelyn is a modern woman from a middle class family, sharing a flat with a friend and working at the Office of Pensions, dealing with the out of work and injured soldiers but she has her demons too having lost a loved one at the front. When a demobbed soldier comes to her work asking about her own brother, Evelyn is curious to find out why and eventually opens a can of worms that bring the true atrocities of war to light.
Ada is about to celebrate her 25th wedding anniversary to Jack but since their son died at the front nothing has been the same. Ada is one of many who had no body to bury and no explanation of what happened to her beloved son at the front and she cannot move on. Her life has become fixated on knowing what happened to her son and is affecting her marriage and wellbeing.
Although none know it their lives are connected by the brutalities of the Great War and as the journey of the Unknown Warrior unfolds so too do their stories as they struggle to put their pain and loss behind them and go forward into the future.
This is a very touching and poignant telling of loss, pain and grief. The not knowing what has happened and not having a grave to grieve at or a body to finalise the idea of death, no chance to say a proper goodbye is beautifully depicted in this compelling novel where the tales of loss are very different but all equally affecting.
Anna Hope gives different viewpoints of the war and the politics behind the Unknown Soldier without prejudice or bias and encompasses the grief and loss of a nation in the powerful and poignant stories of these three strong women.
It’s a very evocative and thought provoking book, beautifully written with great characterisation and one that will stay with you after you have read it.




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