Goodreads asked Jeffrey K. Walker:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Jeffrey K. Walker I've always been fascinated by the First World War, more so than the Second World War. That might seem odd for an American. World War II was really the final act, the denouement of the First World War—the international order was fractured by the conflict and not very effectively put back together, leaving space and oxygen for fascism, Nazism, Stalinism. Initially, I set out to write a book about the terrible damage war does to the young men and women drawn into it and how they struggle with putting their lives back together after the war. At first, I assumed I’d set the book present day, using Afghanistan or Iraq. As I dug into the project, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was appropriating the stories of young men and women struggling today, real time. To a guy like me who spent 20 years in uniform, it felt a little wrong. So the First World War offered a compelling alternative setting, yet with many of the same problems that young veterans face today. I guess you can say I was a bit of a coward and that landed me in 1914 rather than 2014.

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