The Poppy Wife by Caroline Scott

Just in time for Remembrance Day comes Caroline Scott’s new novel The Poppy Wife, a novel about the First World War. This is a story of men who went to war, and women left behind, some of whom went to France after the end of the war in search of men listed as missing, or to visit the grave of a loved one.

Chapters move between 1916 and 1921, revealing the lives of the Blythe brothers, Harry, Francis and Will. It is also the story of Edie Blythe and Rachel West, two women who are seeking their missing husbands.

Harry Blythe is the only brother who survived the war, and he is now touring France as a photographer, commissioned to take pictures of the graves of soldiers for grieving relatives in England. He is also seeking his brother, Francis, believed to have died and officially listed as missing. Edie is the widow of Francis, and was a good friend to all of the brothers and to their mother. Edie and Harry could perhaps now make a life together, but for the ghost of a possibility that Francis is still alive.

Sound like a soap opera? I wondered the same and almost put this book aside. But, I had few choices as I came to the end of four weeks out of the store – in a land where places to buy books are few and far away – so I picked up The Poppy Wife and found it quite a fine novel.

Caroline Scott a freelance writer and historian specializing in Word War 1 and women’s history, with a PhD from Durham University. Born in the UK, Caroline currently resides in France. The Poppy Wife is partially inspired by her family history.

In Arras, near Vimy, we read about wives looking through tables laden with lost property, taken from the bodies of soldiers. Edie’s search begins in 1921 after she receives a photograph of her husband. A photograph of a man who appears older than he would have been at the end of the war, when he was thought to have died. Is it Francis? And if so, where and when was it taken, and why has it surfaced now?

Rachel West is also in France looking for her husband. She and Harry are both feeling somewhat lost when they meet, both seeking men who may or may not be alive. Men whose life or death leaves their loved ones in a sort of limbo –unable to move forward until there is some proof one way or the other.

We read about the young Blythe brothers, in 1914, with dreams for the future, Harry planning to go to college to study art. Francis a photographer. Will a naturalist. Dreams destroyed by war. The dreams of so many men, and women, destroyed by war. Even for those who returned the dreams are gone, as they ask “what now?” The photographs of those who died on so many mantles in so many homes.

There are beautifully written and dreadful descriptions of soldiers slogging through the mud as they advance, from the Somme toward Vimy, both horrible and fascinating, giving some sense of the desperate circumstances of these men. Four years later Harry revisits this place, the ruined villages and towns, some being rebuilt from the rubble. The memorials being erected in town squares as a remembrance to those who did not return. There is mention of the plans for a Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge. And there are the graveyards, row upon row of graves, with white stones now being placed on each one.

Caroline Scott brings all of this desperate loss to life in The Poppy Wife, a tribute to those who died, held in the memories of those left behind, to live on.