Silent Parts

by John Charalambous

NB Silent Parts was republished as An Accidental Soldier when the book was adapted for TV in 2013.

Every family has its secrets, and the Lamberts have Uncle Harry, who fought in World War I but never came home from France. Each Lambert relative now clings to a different story. Harry died a hero's death on the battlefield . Harry married a sweet French girl. Harry drowned in the mud in Gallipoli. Harry was a coward who ran from the enemy. As his great niece Julie struggles to properly research Harry's fate, she sees how easily history can be rewritten. Slowly she uncovers an awkward boy growing up in turn-of-the-century Australia, an obedient son caring for his aging mother, and finally a 40-year-old bachelor heading off to the European theater as a reluctant soldier. Eventually she finds evidence that Harry was called to the front—after serving in a post out of harm's way—and on the way he made a decision that changed the rest of his life.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Australia

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[UQP Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Accidental Soldier by John Charalambous is a skilfully crafted novel set in two different time periods. In the 1960s, Julie, Harry’s great niece, who remembers hearing conflicting stories and half-whispered tales about the family legend, sets about unravelling the truth.

Running alongside Julie’s search is the story of what really happened to Harry, a bachelor, who having cared for his dying mother, belatedly enlists.

Working as a military baker behind the lines at Rouen, Harry makes an unlikely soldier.

‘ … While almost wholly ignorant of warfare, he knows a thing or two about terror – how to hold it in, how to panic unobtrusively…Before long Harry was rehearsing the sensations of sudden death, because you can’t hone a bayonet and not contemplate the damage it must do to a man’s belly …’

When the Germans break through the Allied defences in the spring of 1918, he learns he is to be sent to the front and makes a decision that will change his life forever. Guided by misapphrehension and half-knowledge, Harry runs away to the countryside and begs refuge at the home of a famous rose-grower. There is only one occupant, an older French woman who has just lost her only son and who speaks no English.

The two form an unlikely bond, crossing language and cultural barriers. Together, they are able to shut out the dread and squalor of warring Europe. For Harry there is a surprising rejuvenation; for the Frenchwoman, all the troubles she expected from the beginning – plus hope.

An Accidental Soldier is an evocative, moving and delicate portrayal of an unexpected love affair in the most unlikely of circumstances.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charalambous made quite a splash with his first novel Furies, (2004), which was shortlisted for the (now sadly defunct) Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best First Book (South East Asia and South Pacific region). He followed this up with Silent Parts, (2006), which was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award in 2007, the year before I started this blog.  He was in good company among impressive nominees, and I know that because I've read them all, except one. Alexis Wright won the award for Carpentaria, from shortlisted novels by Gail Jones (Dreams of Speaking); Deborah Robertson (Careless;) and Peter Carey (Theft: A Love Story, still on my TBR).  The longlist included Richard Flanagan's The Unknown Terrorist; The Unexpected Elements of Love, by Kate Legge, and Beyond the Break, by Sandra Hall (until now, the only one reviewed on myblog because I didn't get round to reading it until 2023).

Silent Parts was reissued in 2013 as An Accidental Soldier when it was made into a film for TV, and out of curiosity, I watched the film on ABC iView. But it was banal.  The actors were fine, the cinematography pretty, but it missed the whole point of the book and turned it into a straightforward tale of a soldier deserting from WW1 and having a relationship with an older French woman.  The book is more interesting and more significant than that.

Alongside the back story of Harry Lambert, a baker in country Victoria who delays enlistment in WW1 until he's pressured into it, there is correspondence between his great-niece Julie and her project notes for a family reunion that she's organising.  She becomes intrigued by Harry: the only one of a large family of WW1 veterans who didn't return.  The letters she receives in answer to her queries about him show that what is said about him, bears more relationship to a family's desire to have a war hero than it does to the facts. If the truth involves shame, someone in the family has done their best to obscure it.

In other words, Silent Parts is a novel of WW1 that features an alternative to the Anzac stereotype.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/04/13/s...

[Jacinta · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a fairly easy book to follow along with the changing of stories of the different characters through the book.

i just didn't enjoy it as much as i hope i would.

[Fawn Rasmussen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started reading this book and couldn't read it anymore, it just didn't catch my attention.

[Just · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled to get into this book and I found it to be clunky in parts and could have done with a bit more editing.

[Sue Hopkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book started well but it went down hill. There was not much meat to the storyline and the ending not good.

[Lisa]

I didn't read the book yet but today watched its excellent film adaptation, "An Accidenrtal Soldier", which I highly recommend.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a real cracker, just loved it. It follows fairly closely the ABC production