Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

From the publisher:

A heart-tugging and gorgeously written novel based on the incredible true story of a WWI messenger pigeon and the soldiers whose lives she forever altered, from the author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk.

From the green countryside of England and the gray canyons of Wall Street come two unlikely heroes: one a pigeon and the other a soldier. Answering the call to serve in the war to end all wars, neither Cher Ami, the messenger bird, nor Charles Whittlesey, the army officer, can anticipate how their lives will briefly intersect in a chaotic battle in the forests of France, where their wills will be tested, their fates will be shaped, and their lives will emerge forever altered.

A saga of hope and duty, love and endurance, as well as the claustrophobia of fame, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey is a tragic yet life-affirming war story that the world has never heard. Inspired by true events of World War I, Kathleen Rooney resurrects two long-forgotten yet unforgettable figures, recounting their tale in a pair of voices that will change the way readers look at animals, freedom, and even history itself.

With the arrival of the centennial of World War One (1914-1918), a good number of books have been published about aspects of that conflict. These deal with situations that are not necessarily fiction about men in war, but in many cases regarding little known facts previously not brought out but well researched and of interest for readers today.

Kathleen Rooney’s book is about a U.S. battalion that took part in the battle at the Argonne Forest in 1918. The troops were part of an attack organized in conjunction with soldiers from other U.S. troops and also from the French army. The battalion managed to reach the area ordered to by high command but the rest of the force did not: leaving these soldiers isolated and surrounded by German troops.

In the chaos of the situation artillery from the U.S. side was misaimed and landed on the isolated battalion killing many. There was no radio in those days and messengers sent to advise of the mix-up were killed. Another method was via the use of homing pigeons normally carried by soldiers trained in flying these birds.

The plight of the surrounded soldiers became widely known and they were termed “The Lost Battalion” by people far and wide. Cher Ami, a homing pigeon was sent with a message for the artillery to stop their fire. The bird completed its flight wounded by enemy bullets and losing an eye and one leg. Ms. Rooney tells her story using two protagonists; one is Major Charles Whittlesey and the other Cher Ami. It is an interesting combination that does get the author’s story across.

Whittlesey brings out the antiwar direction of the book. He is placed in command of the Battalion and must order men to face death in order to comply with directives from generals that live quite nicely behind the lines and don’t see the real cost in the lives of the decisions they make. His post-war life is described by the author as a major guilt trip. Also, an interesting mention is made concerning Woodrow Wilson, then president of the United States. He campaigned for the presidency in 1916, with the slogan “He kept us out of war” but then just a few months after the election promoted a declaration of war against Germany. His actions caused the deaths of thousands of American soldiers that were not necessary to prevent any actions by Germany against the U.S.

Using a homing pigeon as one of the two narrators of the book does not in any way detract from the story. On the contrary, that factor allows the presentation of further commentary by an entity that sees the foibles of soldiers and war from afar and still completes what is thought of as her duty. An interesting aside is the fact that a silent movie was made in 1919 featuring Whittlesey and other survivors of the “lost battalion” For those interested it is available on YouTube.

10/2020 Paul Lane

CHER AMI AND MAJOR WHITTLESEY by Kathleen Rooney. Penguin Books (August 11, 2020). ISBN: 978-0143135425. 336 pages.

Kindle

Audible

From the publisher:

A plot against England that even the genius of H. G. Wells could not have imagined.

It’s 1914. The Great War grips the world—and from the Western Front a strange story emerges…a story of St. George and a brigade of angels descending from heaven to fight beside the beleaguered British troops. But can there be any truth to it?

H. G. Wells, the most celebrated writer of his day—author of The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man—is dispatched to find out. There, he finds an eerie wasteland inhabited by the living, the dead, and those forever stranded somewhere in between…a no-man’s-land whose unhappy souls trail him home to London, where a deadly plot, one that could turn the tide of war, is rapidly unfolding.

In league with his young love, the reporter and suffragette Rebecca West, Wells must do battle with diabolical forces—secret agents and depraved occultists—to save his sanity, his country, and ultimately the world.

Robert Masello is an author who has published historical novels with a decidedly surreal twist involved in them. This current novel is written around H.G. Wells, an author who wrote many books involving a vision of the future that projected what later became real-life happenings. These included “War of the Worlds”, “Things to come” “The Invisible Man” and the “Time Machine.” Wells must be considered as one of the first authors writing what then became Science Fiction, and a man that knew fame in his own lifetime.

The novel begins in England during the first few months of World War I. A legend arose that ghosts of English bowmen and archers appeared magically at the western front and fought on the British side. This was conceived that the Gods were on the side of the English and used to buoy up the country in the face of war.

H.G. Wells, at the peak of his fame, is called into the war office and Winston Churchill the man in charge asks him to travel to the western front in Belgium in order to investigate the truth of the advent of the archers. Wells acquiesces and does so in the care of an experienced soldier.

Masello’s descriptions of conditions at the western front are very vivid and well done. He describes a group of men called ghouls that have deserted their armies and live underground at the front stealing food from the dead in order to survive.

In an attack by the English against soldiers of the German army Wells is propelled into an underground nest of the so-called ghouls who save his life. In later dispatches written by him when he returns to England Wells writes what he is told to by the war office.

In further adventures of the famed author, Wells meets a young lady, Rebecca West who becomes his lifelong mistress. Masello indicates that Jane, H.G. Wells wife knew of his philandering and allowed it to happen, understanding her husband’s needs to do so.

The last half of the novel becomes involved with two events that the author makes up. The first is the survival of a wounded crew member of a downed German airship that had attacked London, and Mrs. Wells caring for him against all regulations. The second is the description of a planned chemical attack by a German agent living in England and action against him by Wells with the aid of Ms. West.

It goes without saying that literary license is used by Masello, as it has been in previous successful novels aiding in providing a very readable novel and one that further enhances his reputation and piquing the interest of his readers who await his next work.

10/2020 Paul Lane

THE HAUNTING OF H. G. WELLS by Robert Masello. 47North (October 1, 2020). ISBN: 978-1542093781. 397 pages.

Kindle

Audible