Century of November, A

by W. D. Wetherell

Copyright by W. D. Wetherell 2004 All Rights Reserved.

Categories:  Contemporary  Novel  War

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About the Book

This is the tale of Charles Marden, an apple grower and judge who sets off from his Vancouver Island home on an impulsive journey to Belgium, where his son, an Allied soldier in the First World War, has just died in battle at the very end of the war. Marden's single-minded mission: finding the exact spot where his son was killed.

Across western Canada the Spanish flu rages—the very disease that claimed Marden's wife three weeks earlier. Upon arriving in England, he learns that his son left behind a pregnant girlfriend. Soon his search widens to include locating the girl, too. Nearing the front lines, Marden seems to descend into the fires of hell as he navigates the mine-strewn killing fields of the trenches, still reeking with poison gas. Will he find the girl, and will he find an answer to the forces that drove him halfway around the world?

W. D. Wetherell's previous books include the novels Morning and Chekhov's Sister, the short story collections The Man Who Loved Levittown and Wherever That Great Heart May Be. He recently held the Strauss Living grant from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Quotes

Winner of the Michigan Literary Fiction Award

"e;Wetherell, a formidable artist in the tradition of the great war poets, gently increases the poundage of pressure on your heart — as well as the suspense — until you are brought to the very extremities of love, hope, and despair, beyond the iron bounds of society. Gripping, damning, and transfixing."
— Entertainment Weekly

"... a beautifully written novel of war and the wrenching grief and unanswerable questions it leaves in its wake A Century of November is full of precise, startling imagery and elegant, richly poetic description ... The whole thing, in fact, is a jewel, an unforgettable historical novel that Wetherell has carefully (and artfully) seeded with loads of contemporary resonance."
— Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"A poignant, probing story ... Wetherell's prose and character writing are unflinching ... [and his] take on a parent's anguish is deeply moving."
— Publishers Weekly

"... murderously beautiful ... could be read with advantage today by any young man or woman who would enlist in war ... Although it takes up fewer than 200 pages, [it] possesses a time-bending gravity ... Even in peacetime, Wetherell's novel would stand out as a small classic of graceful language and earned emotion."
— San Francisco Chronicle

"A timely reminder of the devastation of mortal combat ..."
— Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Extended Copyright Information

Copyright by W. D. Wetherell 2004

Originally published in the United States by The University of Michigan Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Opening Lines (Experimental)

HE JUDGED MEN AND HE GREW APPLES and it was a perilous autumn for both. A surprise autumn--the apples had promised so much. They blossomed early, luxuriously, with a rich pink-white color that went beyond anything he had ever seen. For once there was no late snow, no storm whipping in from the ...

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