Small Wars by Sadie Jones

From the Publisher

The prizewinning author of The Outcast delivers the emotionally searing story of a marriage in crisis, an unflinching look at lives irrevocably altered by one of history's "small wars."

Hal Treherne is a major in the British Army, a young and dedicated soldier on the brink of a brilliant career. When he is transferred to the British colony of Cyprus in 1956, Hal is joined by Clara, his beautiful and supportive wife, and their baby daughters. The Trehernes quickly learn that the Mediterranean is no "sunshine posting," however, and soon Hal is caught up in the battle to defend the island against Cypriots seeking enosis, union with Greece.

Leading his men in difficult and bloody skirmishes, after years of peaceful service, Hal at last tastes triumph. But his confidence and pride quickly fade: traumatized by the brutality he witnesses—and thwarted again in his attempts to do the right thing—Hal finds himself well trained in duty but ill equipped for moral battle.

A seasoned army wife, Clara shares her husband's sense of obligation. She knows to settle in quickly, make no fuss, smile. But as she struggles to trust her own maternal instincts and resist the anxiety that surges with Hal's frequent absences, Clara grows fearful of her increasingly distant husband. When she needs him most, Clara finds the once-tender Hal a changed man—a betrayal that is only part of the shocking personal crisis to come.

What place is there for honor amid cruelty, and what becomes of intimacy in the grinding gears of empire? A passionate and brilliantly researched novel about the effects of war on the men who wage it and the families they leave behind, Small Wars raises important questions that resonate for our own time.

Publishers Weekly

In her excellent second novel (after The Outcast), Jones sets a couple down in turbulent 1956 Cyprus as the Cypriots seek union with Greece and resist British rule. British army major Hal Treherne is dispatched to Cyprus, taking along his wife, Clara, and their young twin girls. There, they fight separate, but equally maddening, battles—Clara as an army wife with babies in an increasingly dangerous land, and Hal on the front lines where, yearning for firefights, he is instead haunted by his lack of control when torture and rape occur at the hands of his own men. While Hal dodges mortal danger, Clara tries to keep the homefront together, struggling to remain supportive of him as she remains isolated with the twins and he is tormented by the violence he witnesses. After Clara narrowly avoids death, Hal makes a split-second decision with powerful implications for their future. The narrative is excruciatingly tense and also graced with real emotion as a marriage is pushed to the brink and loyalties are stretched and broken. It's the perfect mix of poignant and harrowing. (Jan.)\

Library Journal

Worlds away from the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, this stunning new novel from Jones (after the highly regarded The Outcast) set in 1956 Cyprus might just as easily describe the present. In the lead-up to the Suez Canal crisis, the British occupational forces find themselves amid a terrorist campaign conducted by the EOKA, a group of Greek Cypriots set on independence at any cost via pipe bombs, rock throwing, land mines, and roadside ambushes. For their part, the British employ equally familiar counterinsurgency torture and interrogation measures to maintain order. Against this backdrop, career officer Hal Treherne and his family settle into life on the base, where Hal is charged with routing out terrorists. The daily skirmishes take a toll on Hal and undermine his marriage. VERDICT This richly imagined and warmly atmospheric story convincingly demonstrates that small wars, like all wars, are hell. This is historical fiction at its best. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/09.]—Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

Kirkus Reviews

Another intensely buttoned-up British scenario from Jones, who shows a marriage and a belief tested during the Cyprus Emergency. The Outcast (2008), her powerfully visualized, emotionally devastating debut, portrayed a loner in postwar England. This follow-up focuses on a couple, Major Hal Treherne and his wife Clara. A career soldier known as a decent and fair man, Hal is posted in January 1956 to Cyprus, where colonial forces endure random bomb attacks and shootings by guerrillas seeking union with Greece. Clara and their twin daughters join him on the British base, but the two adults' lives quickly diverge to run on parallel tracks. She is confined to the roles of wife, mother and sexual partner, while his responsibilities revolve around life-and-death military operations. Jones ably delineates in clipped, cool detail the divided male and female experiences: tense domesticity versus ineradicable encounters with blood and terror. Hal's conscience is pricked by one of his subordinates, Lt. Davis, who reports that during a poorly organized mass roundup he observed the unprovoked shooting of a civilian and the rape of two women by British soldiers. Col. Burroughs, who ordered the roundup, disparages the witness and reprimands Hal. The gulf between his integrity and the military's slippery pragmatism forces Hal finally to risk everything he previously held dear. A darkly compelling account of honor and disillusionment with contemporary resonance, less wrenching than Jones's first novel but nevertheless a confirmation of her considerable talent.

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