Teen’s mission to save farm
A debut novel about a gutsy girl’s wartime trek is a cracker.
It’s hard to believe this is a debut novel. Rowena House’s tale of an epic journey through 1916 France by a teenager determined to save the family farm is equal to Michael Morpurgo at his best.
Shedding rare light on the grim subsistence of the rural population in those dark winter days on the Western Front, Angelique’s mission is sustained by her conviction that her soldier brother Pascal will survive, and that she must hang on to their smallholding despite her late father’s debtors clamouring for their dues. She has allies in the form of local boy Rene and her Uncle Gustav, who responds to her plea for help on the long march north to the notorious British Army base of Étaples to sell her geese at a premium.
The story is as much about the resilient girl’s inner journey as her trek through a countryside ravaged by war: she reflects on her relationships with family, friends and village elders, sustained always by love for her animals – those cruelly requisitioned by the army, and the flock she coaxes along the road.
For me, the biggest surprise was at the end, in the author’s note. I was so caught up in the military context of 14-yearold Angelique’s struggles I missed the significance of the title (though I’m in good company – novelist and reviewer Adèle Geras had the same revelation). The former Reuters correspondent first published the short story on which this novel is based in the 2013 collection War
Girls (Andersen).