First novel delivers gripping read about the aftermath of war

Being in the newspaper game was great for Judy Schultz’s writing career in more ways than one. The former food editor at the Edmonton Journal might have retired from her day job a few years ago, but she still has the passion for the printed word. That much is obvious when you consider Freddy’s War.

Her tenth book, her first non-fiction effort, is about young Freddy, a 17-year-old boy in 1941 who lies in order to enlist in the army. All he wants to do is fight in the Second World War. He’s like so many boys who grow up with grand tales of battle and adventure in faraway lands.

He joins the Winnipeg Grenadiers, a companion battalion to the Royal Rifles of Canada. That operation formed what was called C Force, the Canadian army stationed in Hong Kong.

Not long after he arrives, he is captured and taken as a prisoner of war.

Sure, there are atrocities that people must endure during armed conflict: torture, terror, and injuries; even simply bearing witness to all of the pain, suffering and death can be deeply traumatizing. When Freddy returns home five years later, he brings the war with him, and extends the psychological collateral damage onto the important people in his life.

This then is a story about coming home and all of the emotional scars that not only don’t heal, but also hurt others. There are three women who love Freddy and each of them takes the brunt of his pain in her own way, including Su Li, his wife. He drinks heavily then either flies into fits of rage, smashing furniture and yelling, or he simply dissolves into his emotions, curling up like a baby and crying. All she can do is watch and be sad. The victim becomes the oppressor, and Su Li becomes the new victim.

It’s an interesting first foray into the world of fiction for Schultz, and she handles it deftly. Alternating between perspectives is a tricky business but she pulls it off well. Normally, she sticks with non-fiction so I really appreciated her humanity in this tale of people caught in the emotional crossfire of war.

Frankly, war stories don’t generally appeal to me because of the violence. There is brutality here, but there is no way around it. Many bad things happen in the world and you can’t avoid all of them.

Freddy’s War had me enthralled and made me feel involved in these people’s lives. That should be the objective of every author, but not all of them accomplish that in less than 250 pages. Schultz does and she deserves praise for this novel.