S3E8 Romance in the Great War: In Memoriam by Alice Winn

Sonja and Vanessa LOVE Alice Winn’s 2024 novel, In Memoriam, a moving love story of two soldiers fighting on the fabled Western Front in World War 1.  Winn nimbly weaves numerous, real historical events through the friends-to-lovers romance of two teens who fight bravely for their country but have to keep their love secret from that very government–on pain of death.

Our goal in this episode is not to summarize or spoil the novel, but rather to act as a useful companion to the text.  You could listen to it before, during, or after reading the book. Most of us know more about WW2 than WW1, and when we encounter historical novels, we often wonder, “how much of this really happened?”  Our episode hopes to offer a larger historical context and flesh out some details that Winn mentions briefly in the narrative, character dialogue, and setting descriptions.   

Can you read and enjoy this novel without knowing more about WW1?  ABSOLUTELY.  Winn never lets you feel lost or confused, but if you are a fellow historically-curious reader, we’ve done a little homework for you. So relax and enjoy the research! 

Along the way, Sonja politely describes how early 20th century European royalty were one big, um, family, followed shortly after by Vanessa explaining feathers as weapons. 

REFERENCES:

Do yourself a huge favor and pick up a copy of Alice Winn’s In Memoriam.

Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory was a landmark study of the impact of World War 1 on our fundamental understanding of the world, of war, of trust in government, leading to the modern sense of alienation and fragmentation.

George Orwell’s essay “Such, Such Were the Joys,” published posthumously in 1952 describes his youthful experience at an elite all-boys boarding school as a "world of force and fraud and secrecy." 

Is Gaunt “a Darcy”? refers to the main argument of Dr. Rachel Feder’s brilliant work, The Darcy Myth (IWAW covers it in Season 3, Episode 6)

Margaret MacMillan's insightful essay, "The Rhyme of History: The Lessons of the Great War"  can be read here

The history podcasts mentioned in the show are The Rest is History, History that Doesn’t Suck, and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History series “Blueprint to Armageddon” that can be purchased directly from his site, dancarlin.com

FURTHER READING SUGGESTIONS ON WW1:

Now it Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs is a reporters description of WW1 after the war when he could finally tell what he really witnessed because government censorship (on all sides) made that impossible during the conflict. It can be purchased here.

If you are curious how the war happened, Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers is very accessible to the nonhistorian reader.

Barbara Tuchman’s 1963 Pulitzer Prize-winning account, The Guns of August vividly portrays the sheer scale and violence of the opening of the war.