After Dunkirk [Paperback]

Milena McGraw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1999

At the threshold of World War II, Wayne Luthie leads the Wonders, an inexperienced British flight squadron playing at war form a safe distance. But soon the fighting draws near. Grace Paley hailed as "memorable and remarkable" this extraordinary debut novel, resonant with the passion and themes of The English Patient and Saving Private Ryan.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shot down during the battle of Dunkirk, Flying Officer Wayne Robert George Henry Luthie is captured and tortured by the enemy before he escapes and returns to England. Believing that "analyzing, examining and inspecting" his prewar experience will help him understand both the trauma he suffered at the hands of the Germans and the horrors of war, he begins writing, in "fits and starts," a record of his life. The fictional result, this cerebral first novel, uses stream-of-consciousness narration to recall a colonial childhood and to record life in the RAF at a base where young, inexperienced pilots, fueled on Benzedrine and brandy, undertake training runs and enemy aircraft recognition tests. While rich in period detail and not without cumulative effect, the book's stylized repetitions and pseudo-Modernist pastiche produce, in the end, a merely schematic effort.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

After Dunkirk, the summer and early autumn of 1941, was when the Battle of Britain began. This first novel vividly portrays that time, mostly from the perspective of an R.A.F. officer, W.R. Luthie, as related through his journal entries. At times meditative and at others sharply cinematic as Luthie shows how things looked and how they made him feel, the narrative is somewhat circular; it takes Luthie a long time to confront completely the secrets that weigh on his soul. Counterbalancing Luthie's journal, and his search through writing it for the meaning of his life, is the story of one of Luthie's pilots, Sergeant Ashley, told more traditionally in the third person. Both young men (Luthie "celebrates" his 21st birthday that summer of 1941) are struggling to understand not only the war of which they are a part but also what it means to be a just and mature person. Read as a war novel, or as a Bildungsroman, or as an attempt to fathom the nature of good and evil, this is a most satisfying novel. A treat for readers who want their fiction to make them think.?Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, MA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 9905 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; First Edition. first pb43 edition (May 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395977800
• ISBN-13: 978-0395977804
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,330,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unusual and beautiful book, September 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: After Dunkirk (Paperback)

I have never written a reader review before, but I feel I simply must write to contest the assessment of After Dunkirk, as put forth by the "reader from Brooklyn NYC." After Dunkirk is a treat for those who like to read about people of interesting minds. The writing is "different"--unusual--but beautifully done. It is "elegant"--but in the best sense of the word. It makes the book's characters come alive not just on the page, but in the reader's heart, too. I got to know these people's innermost feelings and thoughts the way I know my own thoughts and emotions. The love story is haunting. After I got into it, I couldn't put this book down. But, as I neared the end, I found that I was "pacing myself"--slowing down--because I didn't want the story to end. I look forward with great anticipation to the next book by this author.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EVERYBODY SHOULD OWN THIS BOOK, May 12, 2000

By 

F. Bower (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After Dunkirk (Paperback)

...I LOVED the book! ...There are so many wonderful thingsabout this book, but one of the best is the language! And the factthat English is not the author's native language makes it all the more amazing.

This is not an "easy" book. It requires some attention from the reader. Although Wayne Luthie (the main character) "pulled me in" right in the first few paragraphs, it then took me a little while to get used to the author's unusual style--but not very long. Suddenly, it just hit me: Hey, this is how people really think! This is how my thoughts go inside my own head! And from then on I was completely inside all these people's minds. And they are interesting, flesh-and-blood, and likeable people, facing incredible emotional and physical odds.

Yes, there is a story. It's emotionally involving and moving.

I will not say that this is "the best book I have ever read" ...But I will say that this is one of the most unusual and interesting literary novels I've read in a long time. I hope Ms. McGraw writes many more books, and receives many more grants to help her write them. I'll be waiting.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MOVE OVER, GEISHA!, June 10, 2000

By 

Harriet Moore (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After Dunkirk (Paperback)

It's surprising that nobody has commented on the fact that this is a book written by a woman from the point of view of a man (two men, actually), and about a very masculine environment. <Memoirs of a Geisha> was written by a man from the point of view of a woman, and at least partly because of that it got much acclaim and hype.

But this book does is so much better! Unlike in <Geisha>, where I could VERY easily believe that this was a man writing about a woman, in this book I really felt that I was inside a man's head and his thoughts. How come this novel hasn't been promoted more?

And the language is beautiful--truly poetic! An impressive debut.