World War II is always apainful subject to tackle andin her debut novel,* 22Britannia Road*, AmandaHodgkinson doesn’t shyaway. She writes not onlyabout the terrors of war andsecrets people hold once it’sover, but also has a frank and open look atwhat it means to be a family, a husband, awife and a child of parents who are at theircore, only human.

Silvanna is a Polish refugee fleeing a pastthat still wakes her in the night screaming.Arriving in England with her six-year-old sonAurek, they are met by her husband (Aurek’sfather), Janusz. At first, we don’t know howJanusz made it from Poland to England, orhow he has managed to set up a whole newlife for them, but welcoming his lost wife andchild, they desperately try to settle down andblend into the English way of life.

The story continually jumps betweenJanusz’s point of view and Silvanna’s, withan occasional glimpse into Aurek’s, neverdwelling long in either the past or the present.Their disjointed history –and now thispainful togetherness – highlights how secretscan destroy a family. The reader can see howeach character is torn apart by memories ofhome, their early marriage and the war years,where their experiences are so different andyet similar, to the present-day, where theycan’t let go. And the child Aurek who justwishes ‘the enemy’ (Janusz) would disappearand leave him and his mother to return tothe wild woods where he feels most at home.The question throughout is: do these peoplehave enough spirit left to hold themselvestogether, or will their new life shatter andfall once these secrets are revealed?

Kate Rockstrom is from Readings Carlton