Alice Winn's 'In Memoriam'

It is brave for a young novelist to set her début in one of the most familiar historical environments of all, the First World War. From the original war poets themselves to Pat Barker to Sebastian Faulks to any other number of other contemporary writers, we might feel we have read what needs to be written.

Alice Winn’s In Memoriam takes as its entrance point the old school magazines of Preshute College, starting in June 1914 with bouncy cheer about the grand Upper Sixth men [who] now leave us for the glories of Oxford, Cambridge and Sandhurst! Of course, very soon the tone changes utterly, and subsequent editions are led by the Roll of Honour for those Killed in Action and Wounded, with bald and hideous announcements of the horrors of the battlefield. The author based her research in the Marlborough College newspaper, and a few years ago I spent a lot of time in the archives of our own school magazines, which are all too similar. In the December 1914 edition, a Roll of Honour appeared, with 5 dead from a total of 45 serving (pictured). Every now and then you have to stop yourself and reflect on just how young these poor people were.

Winn’s other entry to the story is the most important one, as she concentrates on the erotically-charged relationship between two of these schoolmates, Ellwood and (half-German) Gaunt. You are never quite sure where the twists of this journey will go, but throughout the story the depth of their feelings for each other is intensely evoked, and by the end it is unquestionably a profound love story.

The narrative moves quickly, driven along by quickfire dialogue and skilfully-written letters. The sections in the trenches manage a lightness of touch despite the grim familiarity of the fictional environment. I was particularly struck by the scenes in a German prisoner-of-war camp:

The men spent their time galloping around the dining hall, antagonising the guards, reading and rereading Adam Bede, and, most notably, plotting elaborate escapes.

Those attempted escapes, and the camaraderie of the British soldiers attempting them, are beautifully and at times humorously described (the French soldiers are particular experts in absurd diversionary tactics). In the end, though, there is no escape from the permanent traumas of what happens to these poor young men. Readers just have to decide for themselves if the ending is any sort of consolation.

Alice Winn has just deservedly won the Waterstone’s Début Fiction Prize.