THE MAPPING OF LOVE & DEATH ~ MAISIE DOBBS #7 ~ by Jacqueline Winspear

Jacqueline Winspear conveys perfectly, in THE MAPPING OF LOVE AND DEATH the tragic waste of young lives during the Great War of 1914-1918 (aka World War I.)

We learn about a young man Michael Clifton, an American from California, who changes his plans one day in August 1914, so that he can fight on the British side in the Great War. After all, his father is British, and all the papers say it will be over by Christmas. He can have an adventure, acquire some wonderful anecdotes to tell to his friends, before heading home to America.

Needless to say, things do not go as planned. The war lasts for over four years, and during that time young men had to climb out of their trenches into the hellish fire of rifles, machine guns, grenades, mortars, and poison gas. So it is no wonder that the British Army lost about 1 million young men, while the French Army lost around 1.34 million and the Germans (fighting on the other side) lost 1.6 million.

Such numbers are crazy, and caused an economic downturn in Europe during the early twentieth century. In Britain, around 1 million young women were forced to abandon their plans to marry, as their were not enough men. Instead they had to work. My mother (born in 1930) recalled her teachers fondly, saying that they were incredibly devoted to their pupils. Of course, these were the women who could not marry. 

In the case of Michael Clifton, his family believes that he died in 1915 as a result of fighting in the war. But Maisie Dobbs is not so sure, and thus the engine of the novel begins.

What makes this novel special is the way in which Jacqueline Winspear gives us glimpses into the heart and mind of this unfortunate young man via his journal and his letters. We learn about his love for an English nurse. We learn that he is very homesick, and that every time he goes to sleep he thinks about his valley, a piece of land that he owns in Arizona. It is these glimpses that bring home the truly horrific toll that this war wrought. For Michael was never able to marry his English nurse. Never able to see his close-knit family. And he was never able to see his beloved valley. 

Michael’s story is the story of millions of young men. I have been to the Somme and I have been to Gallipoli and in both places, I was shocked that so many of these young men were just boys, most not yet twenty-one years old. 

What a terrible, terrible waste.

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