Hiya - to anyone here who enjoys a good read.....you must check out this book. Here's a review I wrote for work (I'm a librarian) A powerful, poignant and beautifully written novel from John ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ Boyne, "The Absolutist" is the story of two British WW1 soldiers who are bonded through the terrors of the trenches and the horrors of warfare. One survives - forever damaged - and the other one is brought down by a firing squad on charges of cowardice. Tristan Sadler survived the war, returning to London and an entry-level job in the publishing industry. Still shattered by war-time experiences, he contacts the sister of his friend who was killed by firing squad on the grounds of cowardice. Sadler has letters that his friend, Will Bancroft, had entrusted to him. These were letters to Will from his sister, Marian, and Sadler feels honour bound to return the letters to Marian. He travels to Norwich to meet Marian and her parents. The Bancroft family is living as pariahs in their community because of the way Will Bancroft met his end. Disgraced as the family of a "coward", Sadler tries to explain to them the circumstances of Will's declaration of his "absolutism" (the total refusal to fight or partake in the war effort in any way) in wartime and the attendant result. With a lovely structure, the novel is narrated in the first person throughout by Tristan, with sections alternating between his agonizing post war visit to Norwich in 1919 to deliver the letters sent by Marian Bancroft to her brother and his army training in Aldershot and subsequent posting to the front lines of France in 1916. This is a thoroughly superb book that I cannot recommend highly enough.
