Louisa Young’s latest novel My Dear I Wanted to Tell You has been hailed as the new Birdsong, a return to the First World War for the Twenty First Century. It is an epoch which writers return to time and again, as they try to explain the atrocities man can commit, and the effect they have on human nature. If man’s actions are the point of the novel, one cannot find a more compelling period to investigate. Young’s attempt has some fierce contenders, Birdsong, All Quiet on the Western Front and Regeneration to name a few, and one might question whether Young’s work can offer a fresh insight into a period vastly covered by literature already.

The novel departs from tradition by concentrating not only on the young men fighting at the front, but also looks at the women left behind who are fighting their own battle between the stifling persona of women in the 1910′s; as housewife and mother, and the new freedom created by the lack of men at home, having to cope with out them and being able to work. For Julia Locke losing her husband to the front is like losing her identity as beautiful, dutiful wife. With out her husband to look after Julia manically concentrates on maintaining her beauty for his return. For her sister in law Rose, the opposite is true. Having never been beautiful, and therefore unmarried Rose finds herself working as a VAD, and having a life she could never have had pre-WW1.  She has become independent of her family and has experienced things Julia could never imagine.

It is also a novel about the loosening of class boundaries, as Nadine Waverley, the novel’s third heroine, a young upper class woman falls in love with her childhood friend Riley, a working class boy, who becomes an officer at the front. It is only through the loosening of class and gender boundaries that Nadine can defy her family and  become involved with Riley. Nadine is also working as a VAD and this new freedom is reflected in her loss of naivety in relation to sexual relationships. Meanwhile Riley is serving at the front where he meets Julia’s husband Peter Locke, who has become an alcoholic as he struggles to face the tragedies of the war. Riley is only eighteen when he joins up, and he has had a privileged childhood as a painting assistant to a upper class man. His innocence is quickly destroyed by the violent death of his friends and comrades and the savagery of man at war.

If Regeneration explored the ravages of the mind during the war, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You explores the effect of physical injury and the medical advances of reconstructive surgery during this period. When Riley has his jaw blow off at Ypres he is sent to the Queen’s hospital where his face will be restored. He writes to Nadine and tells her he has met some one else as he cannot bear for her to see his injured face. It is here that he meets Rose and the lives of the protagonists become entangled ending with the meeting of Nadine and Riley at Julia and Peter’s home where their love is re-asserted.

So far the new millennium seems to be thriving with female novelists, and with in the pages of their novels, female protagonists. These novels often take a historical interest in the plight of women, but Young’s novel is a refreshingly level stage for both men and women. This is highlighted by the parallels drawn between Riley and Julia. Both are suffering, whether man or woman, at home or at the front and neither sex is more culpable. Riley has to under go plastic surgery for his damaged face and at the same time Julia is using new techniques to try and preserve her beauty, to dramatic consequence. Both treatments are caused by the war around them and both are equally tragic to the reader. Young’s novel provides the reader with an insightful look at both sexes and how they cope with the war and it’s aftermath.

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