Peacetime

by Robert Edric

A stunningly atmospheric and powerful new novel set in 1946 on the east coast of England.

Late summer 1946: the Wash on the fenland coast. Into a suspicious and isolated community comes James Mercer, until recently a captain in the Engineers, now employed in the demolition of redundant gun platforms. A relationship grows between Mercer and the wife of a soldier who is expected home very soon, and whose arrival is awaited with anxiety. Mercer also befriends Mathias, a German prisoner of war engaged in similar work who has no wish to be repatriated; and Jacob, a Jew and camp survivor. Mercer soon learns there is a bond between the German and the Jew, and is drawn further into their history as the ex-soldier finally returns and begins to re-establish his overbearing authority. In a place where nothing has changed for decades, the agents of
destruction and renewal are at work. As the summer dies, animosities flare, prejudices and enmities are burnished and the six main characters circle each other like the combatants they believe themselves to be.

In his powerful new novel, Edric captures with breathtaking economy the sense of portent and uncertainty shared by a community in the aftermath of conflict -- a community for which peacetime is hardly any different from wartime.

Genres: Fiction

329 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Robert Edric (b. 1956) is the pseudonym of Gary Edric Armitage, a British novelist born in Sheffield.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

If a comparison need be made, I would consider Mr. Edric playing in the same realm as J.G. Ballard.

"Peacetime" darkens into a drama of extremity and isolation. It's 1946, and the aftermath of the global conflict weighs heavy. James Mercer, a former captain in the Engineers, is demolishing obsolete gun emplacements on the Fenland coast. An outsider to the tight-knit Fen community.

We follow his progress as he tries to befriend some of the locals and he is quickly caught up in the local hostilities.

How different is peacetime really from wartime ?

[Bev Walkling · Rating 4 out of 5]

From very early on in my reading of this book I felt a darkness hanging over the story and it felt almost like I was holding my breath waiting for the something bad to happen. Set in 1946 in an isolated community on the Fenland Coast of England, James Mercer, a demobilized soldier, has been hired to oversee the demobilization of gun platforms, which were part of England’s defence system, which were never really used. It is a thinly veiled secret that the homes most of the local people are living in will eventually be razed. All of this leaves Mercer somewhat isolated from most of the community but he does develop some friendships. He befriends a 15 year old girl and her mother who are waiting for their father/husband to be released from military prison. He also befriends Mathias, a German prisoner of war who would prefer not to return to Germany but faces little choice, and Jacob, a Jewish concentration camp survivor who is a skilled artisan but in extremely poor health.

I suspect it would be too much to expect that once the war ended people would be able to let go of their feelings of hatred towards their erstwhile enemies. We have a wonderful example in this novel of Matthias and Jacob caring for each other and getting past their own terrible personal experiences and losses and yet for Mercer, there is little he can do to ward off the impending cataclysm.

I found this book to be extremely well written despite the darkness of the times and situation. It left me wondering if things were different in larger cities post-war and also whether we as society have learned anything about forgiveness, loyalty and love for our fellow man.

[Trawets · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peacetime by Robert Edric is set on the Fenland coast in the summer of 1946. James Mercer a former Royal Engineers officer is employed supervising the demolition of a gun site and the laying of foundations for a Coastguard station whose construction will lead to the eventual destruction of nearby houses.
James Mercer befriends a number of characters including a Dutch Jewish concentration camp survivor, a German POW hoping to stay in England and the wife and daughter of a man shortly to be released from a military prison. Lynch the ex-prisoner, a violent bully proves to be the catalyst for a violent but inevitable conclusion.
The tension in this novel builds gradually through this novel, you just know there is not going to be a happy ending, but I couldn't guess just how it would come about. A very good read.

[Siobhan Markwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

War is over but does peace deliver? Edric's novel explores a grimy, gnarly armistice. Homecomings are not be all they're cracked up to be; time to reflect invokes a seething mass of pain; finding your place in a shattered world is rarely the simplistic equation: we lost; we were wrong. Peacetime sketches the post-war reality of demobbed British soldiers tasked with menial reconstruction jobs designed to sweep away obsolete infrastructure on the East coast of the English fens. Inhabiting the uneasy peace alongside them are German POWs, who yearn for a home that likely lies in ashes, a Jewish Holocaust survivor whose body and mind are ruined, and the wives, daughters and infant sons of a deprived backwater community, who shuffle more or less passively in and out of their homes casting aspersions or whispering in groups. When a violent local husband, imprisoned for desertion and black-marketeering, reappears in the community, Edric commandeers their gender relations in a slightly clumsy symbolic story that, nevertheless, carries perceptive truths and asks the crucial question of whether a war ever truly ends or just recedes and allows its vitriol to seep into future conflicts.

[Martin Wingfield · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointing, his least convincing book . . .

[David Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreaking and heartening, atmospheric and brilliant literary novel set in rural Lincolnshire. It’s 1946, the war is over but it’s absence is more difficult for the local population to deal with than it’s presence as their houses are about to be demolished to accommodate a new structure built by Trinity House. The man with the plans, a former army officer called Mercer is juggling his knowledge of this with trying to keep them onside at the same time befriending Josef, a weak Belsen survivor, and Mathias, a German soldier longing to remain in Britain but likely to be repatriated.
Into this fragile situation comes Lynch, father of a 15 year old girl, Mary, who has taken a shine to Mercer. Lynch has been released from military prison, has a history of violence including domestic abuse and is anti-Semitic, anti-German, confrontational, alcoholic and keen to take all his frustration at his own inadequacy on his wife and daughter along with Mercer and his two friends. His aggression is counterbalanced by the tenderness of the relationships developing between Mathias and Josef as well as Mary and Mercer.

[Tim Atkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ultimately gripping story that takes just a little too long, that lingers more than is necessary on what seem to be contrived conversations in which characters reveal a backstory that isn’t, ultimately, strictly relevant to the plot, or - if it is - would be better shown than told. As an old WW2 airfield is dismantled, as lives adjust to the end of war and as bitter truths are faced, the peacetime world is revealed to have the same problems, prejudices and poverty of prospects as what went before; nothing changes, just as everything changes. It’s an important theme and a good tale, not awfully well told.

[David Grieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another evocative, psychological drama from Edric. His style is constantly unsettling adding to the intrigue. The story is simple; a man, Mercer, comes to a closed community to lead a team of workers dismantling the now disused gun platforms, shortly after the end of WWII. The cast of characters is almost exclusively a Jew, a German POW, Mercer and a few of the villagers. The relationships, prejudices, histories and aspirations make the tale.

Not an easy read but a very satifying and enjoyable one.

[Jane · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. If condensed into a short story it would have been ok, but it was 352 pages of repetitive drivel on post WWII Britain.