Men With Broken Faces
Men With Broken Faces is the story of a World War I soldier's fight for physical survival during combat, and of his struggle for spiritual survival afterward. The book follows Morgan Feeney from basic training in Montana to front-line combat in France, and back to Montana. Some of the sub-plots include Morgan's affliction with petit mal epilepsy; the death on the battlefield of a gay prizefighter's friend; Morgan's vision of his ideal love, Evangeline; Morgan's neurasthenia (shell shock); and worst of all, the suicide death of his friend, Lansing Rhodes, just before the end of the war. For the rest of his life Morgan is haunted by the war, by Lansing's war diary, and by Evangeline.
After his release from the army, Morgan homesteads in northeastern Montana. Burdened by his epilepsy, and tormented by his war experiences, Morgan becomes an outcast; the object of gossip and ridicule. Morgan's one salvation is the incarnation of Evangeline: beautiful Genevieve Richards, who was a nurse in France during the war. |
|
Midwest Book Review
Men with Broken Faces
James Ostby
Dog Ear Publishing
4010 W. 86th Street, Ste H, Indianapolis, IN 46268
Smith Publicity (publicity)
1930 E. Marlton Pike, Suite I-46, Cherry Hill, NJ 08003
9781608448562, $14.99, www.dogearpublishing.net
War does terrible things to people. "Men with Broken Faces" is a novel of World War I following Morgan Feeney from his basic training camp to the tragedy of the post war life. James Ostby tells the story of this all too true in history of people who faced the crippling nature of war, from the true physical deformities to the lives that were forever shattered, and how we struggle to find a truly happy ending. "Men with Broken Faces" is a profound and recommended read.