War & Turpentine, book reivew
War & Turpentine Stefan Hertmans, translated by David McKay Book review War & Turpentine is an autobiographical novel based upon the experiences of the author’s grandfather during World War I. Maybe. There are indeed some facts. The author’s grandfather, born in 1891, died in 1981. “It was as if his life,” Mr. Hertmans writes, “were no more than two digits playing leapfrog.” Urbain, an amateur painter most of his life, left behind his wartime journals. Beyond this, Hertmans dives into his grandfather’s world, bringing us into the context and history of Flemish Belgium around the turn of the 20 th century, an industrial age where children worked long hours at dangerous foundries incurring hideous injuries that often left them scarred physically and emotionally, or worse: dead. Urbain at every turn faced hardship and danger—and this was before he was drafted. The book is divided into three parts. Setting the foundation of family history prior to the w...