Book - BookDetective

Name: A Very Long Engagement

Author: Sebastien Japrisot
Year: 1991
Rank:

Rating:

Original Rating:

Pop Rating:

Genres/categories:
Historical fiction, Fiction, War/Military, Romance

Purchase/reserch links:

LibraryThing

Goodreads

Amazon

ISBNs:
9780452272972
9780312424589
0452272971

In January 1917, five wounded French soldiers, their hands bound behind them, are brought to the front at Picardy by their own troops, forced into the no-man's land between the French and German armies, and left to die in the cross fire. Their brutal punishment has been hushed up for more than two years when Mathilde Donnay, unable to walk since childhood, begins a relentless quest to find out whether her fiance, officially "killed in the line of duty," might still be alive. Tipped off by a letter from a dying soldier, the shrewd, sardonic, and wonderfully imaginative Mathilde scours the country for information about the men. As she carries her search to its end, an elaborate web of deception and coincidence emerges, and Mathilde comes to an understanding of the horrors, and the acts of kindness, brought about by war.

A runaway bestseller in France and the winner of the 1991 Prix Interallie, this astonishing novel is many things at once: an absorbing mystery, a playful study of the different ways one story can be told, a moving and incisive portrait of life in France during and after the First World War, and a love story of transforming power and beauty.