It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting.
Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle–an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the glamorous, charming Ellwood–without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return. When Gaunt’s family asks him to enlist to forestall the anti-German sentiment they face, Gaunt does so immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. To Gaunt’s horror, Ellwood rushes to join him at the front, and the rest of their classmates soon follow. Now death surrounds them in all its grim reality, often inches away, and no one knows who will be next.
An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.
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Alice Mary Felicity Winn is an Irish and American novelist and screenwriter, born in France and educated in England. Early life and education Winn was born and raised in Paris, the daughter of Irish and American parents. She holds Irish citizenship. She has dyslexia and did not learn to read until she was nine years old. Winn was educated at Marlborough College in England. She graduated with a degree in English literature from St Peter's College, Oxford. She has described having a "tenuous grasp" of her identity. After graduating, Winn set a goal of writing "a novel a year until I wrote one that was good." Before writing In Memoriam, Winn wrote three unpublished novels, worked on screenplays, and taught homeschooled children. In 2019, Winn started writing In Memoriam after reading student newspapers published 1913–1919 from her alma mater, Marlborough College. The protagonists, Gaunt and Ellwood, were inspired by her readings of and about Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon, respectively. She won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize in 2023 for her novel In Memoriam.
