#55 The Ghost Road, by Pat Barker
Booker Prize : Winner 1995 Plot Time and Place : During World War I, in France, Britain and a remote island in Melanesia. Opening sentence : "In deck-chairs all along the front the bald pink knees of Bradford businessmen nuzzled the sun." Plot summary : Officer Billy Prior has recovered from shell shock and chooses to return to the Western Front in 1918. Army psychiatrist William Rivers remains in England treating severely traumatized men. He remembers his past anthropological fieldwork on Eddystone Island. Review : I enjoyed the depiction of what it was like in the battlefield. The characters felt very real, like real people. However, I didn't really get what was the author's purpose in throwing the Eddystone Island part into the mix. I felt it didn't have anything to do with the rest of the story. Overall, a very human book against war. Rating : 3/5