World War I (1914-1918)
The more you read about the First World War, the more you realize that the centuries meet there. The career of nation-states, the legacies of imperialism, the entanglement of colonialism, the pace of technological development, the gamemanship of ways of doing battle dating back to the Roman Empire, and the irresistable rise of 20th Century powers all collide in a four-year war.
Here I stock a mix of traditional histories, fiction, and other ways of telling the story that echoes into our present day.
Flanders: A Novel
Flanders: A Novel
"A harrowing and beautiful novel, demonstrating — again — that Patricia Anthony is one of our great writers." — Publishers Weekly
In this gritty look at World War I's trench warfare, a young American sharpshooter ventures into no man's land each night to be ready by daybreak for the grim business of slaying record numbers of enemies. But Travis Lee Stanhope, a Texan serving with an English unit, is haunted by ghosts of the men he's killed as well as those of his fallen comrades. As he hovers on the brink of a transcendent experience, Travis gradually realizes that although he is surrounded by death, his true mission is related to life.
A New York Times and American Library Association Notable Book, this tale was acclaimed by Booklist as "a haunting, sometimes almost hallucinatory, yet surprising war novel" and by Kirkus Reviews as "mesmerizing … highly textured and brimming with insight."
"Flanders ranks close to All Quiet on the Western Front in its impact." — San Francisco Chronicle
"Anthony's subtle and innovative storytelling reaches a new plane in her latest novel, a foray into magical realism that contrasts the waking hell of war with the fragile peace of eternity." — Library Journal
This Dover edition, first published in 2019, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by Ace Books, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., New York, in 1998.