All’s fair in this tale of love in a time of war
Lethbridge: A book review
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“All agreed that for anyone not present that dawn at Vimy it was not possible to comprehend the intensity of the experience. The shells and bullets hurtling above the trenches formed a canopy of red-hot steel just above the heads of the advancing troops — a canopy so dense that any Allied airplane flying too low exploded like a clay pigeon. At least four machines were destroyed that morning by their own guns.”
Eminent historian Pierre Berton, who wrote this passage in his 1986 book Vimy, was a stickler for historical truths. The novelist and playwright Timothy Findley, who noted in his memoir Inside Memory that Berton’s books were “meticulously researched,” learned the hard way that the famous historian “was conscientious to a fault when it came to the dramatic interpretation of people and events.”
Berton may have flinched at some of the details in Terry McConnell’s Lethbridge: A tale of love in a time of war. While the author was meticulous in researching Vimy Ridge battle history and no doubt presents an accurate account of the battle, he does take liberties with some details without taking away from the historical record. But then by McConnell’s own admission, his story is “a literary work that blends fiction and fact and imagines conversations that might have been.”
And what a wondrous tale McConnell tells of the love story between his grandparents Stanley and Hettie Knowlton and their surrounding cast of friends and family. It’s all set against the backdrop of World War I and the epic 1917 battle at Vimy where Berton wrote “our country found its manhood,” with scenes that unfold in different countries and cities — from London to Boston, Maine to Niagara Falls and, of course, Vimy, France to Lethbridge, Alberta.
If indeed all is fair in love and war, then perhaps it’s fair game to play a little loose with some minor historical details to serve a greater truth. Vimy was a defining moment in the history of Canada and in McConnell’s family history and the author does a masterful job in honouring his ancestors in this compelling narrative.
(Full disclosure: Terry is a good friend and former publisher so some may consider my review biased. Oh, but I know a great story when I read one and — damn the personal biases! — this is one helluva story.)
Let’s start with the compelling characters.
“Life-altering moment,” Jessie tells her sister Hettie at one pivotal point in her friend’s life and in this story.
“Aren’t they all?” replies Hettie, McConnell’s grandmother.
Hettie is a larger-than-life figure. As a reader, I suppose I would have wanted to read more about her but that’s the thing with strong characters — you can never get enough of them.
Her will and strength is matched by that of her beloved Stanley and his counterparts who fought bravely in the important and bloody Battle of Vimy Ridge. She learned her lessons, perhaps, from the land she called home — Lethbridge — and from the indomitable example of her mother Annie.
“Lassie,” Annie advises her daughter at one point, “if I’m going to leave you with anything to think about, let it be this. You can close your heart as you put it, and live your life as a spectator, attached to nobody. Or you can give it all you have. And if that means giving your heart to a man at the risk of losing him, then at least you won’t spend the rest of your life wondering about what might have been.”
I won’t disclose more details about Lethbridge as that would sap the story of some of its surprises and startling details. I will say the section in which McConnell alternates scenes between the “bedlam and bloodshed” that takes place at the front and Hettie reading accounts of Vimy Ridge in the newspaper back in Alberta is very well done. So too is the pitch-perfect ending of this book.
Lethbridge: A tale of love in a time of war is available in print and ebook formats on Amazon, Analog Books, in Lethbridge and an audiobook is in the works.
Claudio D’Andrea has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and online publications for more than 30 years. You can read his stuff on LinkedIn and Medium.com and follow him on Twitter.
