Bodies of Men

Nigel Featherstone

Bodies of Men
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Hachette Australia
Country
Australia
Published
23 April 2019
Pages
336
ISBN
9780733640704

Bodies of Men

Nigel Featherstone

There is nothing more important than love and refuge.

Egypt, 1941. Only hours after disembarking in Alexandria, William Marsh, an Australian corporal at twenty-one, is face down in the sand, caught in a stoush with the Italian enemy. He is saved by James Kelly, a childhood friend from Sydney and the last person he expected to see. But where William escapes unharmed, not all are so fortunate.

William is sent to supervise an army depot in the Western Desert, with a private directive to find an AWOL soldier: James Kelly. When the two are reunited, James is recovering from an accident, hidden away in the home of an unusual family - a family with secrets. Together they will risk it all to find answers.

Soon William and James are thrust headlong into territory more dangerous than either could have imagined.

Review

We all know that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but how often do we find ourselves doing exactly that? When I first saw Bodies of Men, I thought it looked like a blokey war story, which is not something I would usually be interested in. I assumed it was going to be full of bloody battles and heroic deeds. However, our head book buyer, Alison, convinced me that I’d been too hasty in dismissing it and, on her advice, I read it. Now, here I am, writing a review. Sometimes you just need a good bookseller to point you in the right direction, even when that direction might initially seem like a book that is ‘not for you’!

In Bodies of Men, William and James meet as young boys and, despite coming from completely different backgrounds and seeing each other only a handful of times, they form a strong bond of friendship – a friendship William’s father goes to some lengths to destroy. Years later, having both joined up to the army, the two catch sight of each other during a skirmish in the western desert of Egypt. William later discovers James recuperating from a motorbike accident in the home of a family in Alexandria. The friendship between the two soon blossoms into something much deeper. As the story unfolds many secrets from the past rise to the surface. These secrets are not only those of James and William’s families, but also those of the family harbouring James.

While the novel is mostly set during World War II, the war is simply a backdrop for what is essentially a novel about relationships, not only between couples, but also between parents and their children. It is a beautifully written, tender love story – the perfect book to curl up with as autumn sets in.


Sharon Peterson is the shop manager at Readings St Kilda.

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