THE GREAT FIRE

Embittered by war and its skeletal aftermath, 33-year-old British war hero Major Aldred Leith, after walking across China, is posted not far from Hiroshima. There in the shadow of blighted landscapes a delicately fresh 17-year-old girl restores him to love and hope. Ironically, the distances between them--age and experience--both attract them to each other and threaten their relationship. Virginia Leishman’s narration, precise and thoughtful, reflects this underlying irony with a sense of painful gentleness. It is tentative and unhurried, reflecting Leith’s cautious retelling of his story and tenuous hold on life, yet it shimmers with an implicit energy that seems to respond to the life ready to spring out anew. Though not really a war novel, this 2003 National Book Award winner is probably the finest study ever of its aftermath, and Leishman’s narration replicates the almost imperceptible movement from postwar hollowness to hope reborn. P.E.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 04]