Small Wars by Sadie Jones

When I read The Outcast, Sadie Jones’s best-selling debut, I was struck by the sense of stifling claustrophobia she created in the village in which her protagonist lived. Jones appears to excel at creating small, insular communities and she does it again in Small Wars, her second novel. It is the story of a soldier and of a marriage. Hal Trehearne becomes a soldier, like his father and grandfather before him and marries, Clara, the sister of his friend.

The next time we meet them, Clara has just arrived in Cyprus with their twin daughters to be with Hal while he is stationed there in 1956, during the Emergency. Theirs is a sweet relationship, loving and kind and I think that made the cloud that was obviously looming all the worse. I did not want to see this lovely little family destroyed but I knew it was going to happen. Prior to his position in Cyprus, Hal was stationed in Germany where he spent most of his time behind a desk. Clara understands his need for action, recognises that it’s not about a lust for violence but a desire to do the job he has been trained for.

But although Hal is trained for war, he is not prepared for it. Justice becomes something slippery, not the solid certainty he had once thought. He commits terrible acts and he tries to bring justice to the crimes of his men. As the book progresses Hal becomes less warm, he loses touch with Clara and eventually sends her to Nicosia, where he believes she will be safer. By the end he is a shadow of the strong and certain man we met in the beginning.

Hal and Clara are beautifully drawn characters, but I found I was often frustrated with them. They always responded to everything so calmly and with such understanding that it nearly drove me mad. Hal, I could understand, being a soldier and trained to be tough. Clara doesn’t want him to worry about her but I couldn’t help but think that there was a point when most people would have lost their grip on their temper. Clara, fantastically restrained, never does and it’s this lack of passion that meant I couldn’t completely warm to her.

In fact, the whole book is quite restrained and for me, it was a little too controlled. Terrible things happen, things which Jones describes in such hot, revolting detail that I felt I was actually there. But there’s a sense of detachment from the characters about the events. There are also several strands of the story that are left hanging – Clara’s admirer, who has an affair with another army wife once Clara has gone, is abandoned by the author once Clara is in Nicosia. That strand of the story could have been cut without impacting on the book at all. The ending made me feel there was a chapter or so missing. There’s a strange quality to the book that seems to conjure up a detachment, a vague uncertainty which probably echoes the contemporary feeling. But it didn’t sit quite right with me.

I have rarely – if ever – found that action works on the page, that it is possible to produce war in words. It’s always something that I consider a visual thing. So I found the interludes difficult as I have no military experience so they’re hard for me to imagine. I also found it difficult because such horrible things happen. Hal, the sweet and adoring husband, the good man, does some pretty terrible things. I also didn’t like the little expositions about the politics, the situation. They are never going to be anything other than textbook sounding.

Small Wars creates one brilliant character in Hal, but I was disappointed in the way other promising people and potential plots stepped up then faded away. I’ve heard such wonderful things about this book, but for a reason that I cannot put my finger on, I’m unable to echo the praise.

Vintage 2010, 2010. ISBN-10: 0099540525. 480pp

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