The Canal Bridge

Starred review from April 15, 2014
From Phelan's effectively constructed and emotionally honest novel about Irish participation in WWI, the reader gains a new perspective on how the Great War decimated lives throughout Europe. Told in a chorus of alternating but harmonious voices, the narrative relates the story of two boyhood chums in rural Ireland who, in a monumental gesture to broaden their horizons, together join the British army (this is 1913, when Ireland was still part of the UK) and are eventually deployed to India. But before their troop ship can arrive there, the vessel is required to turn back. War has been declared in Europe, and the two boys are plunged full-tilt into the carnage as stretcher bearers. Battle scenes are graphically drawn but appropriately so. Phelan's intention is to accurately show the staggering waste of human life that the two friends observe, the memories of which keep the one friend who returns to Ireland at war's end from being mentally quite at home for some time. As is observed, There are more ways of getting killed in a war than by bullets. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)