Home Fires

Home Fires
Elizabeth Day

A stunning, delicate portrait of a family bookended by war, Home Fires explores the legacy of loss, the strictures of class and the long road to redemption.Max Weston, twenty-one, leaves for his first army posting in central Africa. What happens to him changes the lives of his family forever. At home, his parents struggle to cope. The overwhelming love Caroline has always felt for her only child is now matched by the intensity of Max's absence. The silence is broken by the arrival of Caroline's mother-in-law, Elsa, who at the age of ninety-eight can no longer look after herself. After years of living in fear of putting a foot wrong in front of this elegant, cuttingly courteous lady, finally, Caroline has the upper hand.

Copyright (#u87c53aff-a294-54c1-a407-d3d1962a57c6)

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thEstate.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc in 2013

This eBook edition published by 4th Estate in 2017

Copyright © Elizabeth Day, 2013

Elizabeth Day asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008221737

Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008221744

Version: 2018-03-06

Praise for Home Fires (#u87c53aff-a294-54c1-a407-d3d1962a57c6)

‘Elizabeth Day writes with unflinching, responsible honesty’ Sadie Jones

‘It’s to Elizabeth Day’s credit that she turns her back on the conventional narrative to explore the realistic consequences of war and violence on the women who, to cite the song to which the novel’s title alludes, keep the home fires burning. Day chooses the tough option at every turn, with the result that the novel becomes a powerful and, at times, heartbreaking account of Caroline and Elsa’s inability to deal with their crises. The prose is crisp and forthright, particularly when Day is describing the variations of violence, although she has a piercing eye for a telling phrase or a poetic flourish’ Irish Examiner

‘Brilliant’ Viv Groskop, Red

‘Day is an empathetic observer. She is meticulous in teaching and dissecting each sentence her characters experience … Home Fires conveys a broader version of life with the claustrophobia of emotional repression’ Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

‘Day has created a compelling study of grief, not least the conflicting ways in which the bereaved may wish to remember the dead … A bold novel, shocking in what it confronts and also in its suggestion that love will, ultimately, survive trauma’ Daily Telegraph

For my grandparents, who wanted me to write stories.

Contents

Cover (#u814cc6cb-cdb2-5282-a0aa-81d794db66c8)

Title Page (#uc0884c4d-7f18-5b32-9411-1c173efde51f)

Copyright (#u80ebf8a8-1c57-5e19-8306-1f7b1bfdcbf5)

Praise (#u7e24012d-8cd8-59d0-9ff8-253010b02ee4)

Dedication (#u0ded79ca-fbd9-5722-abf2-bb64fd4d3f06)

Prologue (#ub7947ad3-4977-5a9a-a63d-6e2e52211e99)

Part I (#u4eef91ef-ec05-5e24-88f3-3e443192ff02)

Elsa, 1920 (#u1882fbba-b393-51b7-884d-6675ef2eed76)

Caroline, 2010 (#u6acf4216-7bbe-5a23-9ec7-578a3c89d8c3)

Elsa, 2010 (#ubcb1b4ea-bc4c-5cfb-bcf5-caf9e36d2ea4)

Andrew, 1989 (#uc1c6b399-487c-5416-810a-8fb3ec6006be)

Part II (#ue31aea73-2ccd-5696-849b-d2c4614031bc)

Caroline (#uaec1dcf8-6a1d-5027-989f-9e9c24fbb3b6)

Part III (#litres_trial_promo)

Andrew (#litres_trial_promo)

Elsa (#litres_trial_promo)

Elsa, 1919 (#litres_trial_promo)

Caroline (#litres_trial_promo)

Elsa (#litres_trial_promo)

Caroline (#litres_trial_promo)

Andrew (#litres_trial_promo)

Elsa, 1923 (#litres_trial_promo)

Caroline (#litres_trial_promo)

Elsa (#litres_trial_promo)

Caroline (#litres_trial_promo)

Max (#litres_trial_promo)

Andrew (#litres_trial_promo)

Elsa, 1936 (#litres_trial_promo)

Caroline (#litres_trial_promo)

Part IV (#litres_trial_promo)

Elsa (#litres_trial_promo)

Caroline (#litres_trial_promo)

Caroline, Andrew (#litres_trial_promo)

Elsa (#litres_trial_promo)

A Note on the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)