Overview

A deep and affecting novel about the stirring power of human love in the midst of the atrocities of war John Hilliard, a young subaltern returning to the Western Front after a brief period of sick leave back in England, finds his battalion tragically altered. His commanding officer finds escape in alcohol, there is a new adjutant and even Hilliard's batman has been killed. But there is David Barton. As yet untouched and unsullied by war, radiating charm and common sense, forever writing long letters to his family. Theirs is a strange meeting and a strange relationship- the coming together of opposites in the summer lull before the inevitable storm.

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9780140036954

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This is a curious book for this day and age - almost a period piece, and a curious book fora woman to have written in any day and age - a very self-contained and self-restrained account of World War I over there profiled with something of the lean nobility of say Brooke or Sassoon. After a slight wound John Hilliard, an infantry lieutenant, has a home leave only to find that he is now totally uncommunicative in the world he left behind (an elegant mother, a sister on whom he was too dependent who is now about to marry). He goes back to the front and what is left - very little - of his old company and a young man Barton, as yet untouched by any actual war experience, whose open confidence he returns with a first and absolute love. But as the weeks pass Barton too is tarnished by the guilt, fear and failure which rub off on him under these circumstances as each man's death diminishes him and he goes inevitably to his own rendezvous while Hilliard in the bleak prescience of what will happen, just survives - losing a leg. . . . Miss Hill writes with a meticulous, quiet, almost letter-perfect exactitude which corroborates rather than encroaches, most understandable under the circumstances - there is that interval in time as well as Hilliard's gloved reserve. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Susan Hill was born in Scarborough in 1942, and educated at grammar schools there and in Coventry. She read English at King's College, London, of which she is now a Fellow. As well as I'm the King of the Castle, her novels include Strange Meeting, The Bird of Night, In the Springtime of the Year, Air and Angels, The Service of Clouds,The Various Haunts of Men, The Pure in Heart, The Rise of Darkness, The Beacon, The Vows of Silence and The Small Hand. She has written several volumes of short stories, including A Bit of Singing and Dancing; two ghost novels, The Woman in Black and The Mist in the Mirror; and a number of stories for children. Her autobiographical books are The Magic Apple Tree and Family. She is married with two adult daughters and lives in North Norfolk.

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