God's Sparrows

By Philip Child

Book Overview

A new edition of Philip Child's great Canadian novel of the First World War.

A horrifying description of war, specifically embodied in the vain and inglorious futility of the First World War, God's Sparrows is a novel rich in compassion and firm in its faith in the human spirit. Philip Child created a Canadian family saga, a modern pilgrim's progress in which individuals surmount the corrosive effects of brutality, maintaining their ability to love and endure under the most agonizing circumstances. His book, first published in 1937, remains as a stirring testimony to that ability. It offers profound insight into the experience of the First World War, not just as a catastrophe affecting his characters but as a crucible in which the whole of this nation found itself tried.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1459736435
• ISBN13: 9781459736436
• Release Date: March 2017
• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

God's Sparrows

Now largely forgotten, Philip Child was born in Hamilton, Canada in 1898, and was the author of several novels, one of which was awarded the Governor General's Award in 1948. Child served during the latter stages of the First World War as an officer with a Canadian Field Artillery battery. Drawing from this experience, he wrote God's Sparrows, which was first published in England in 1937. The story centres on the Thatchers, a wealthy family from "Wellington" whose comfortable lives are thrown assunder by the outbreak of the war. As the war progresses, and the two sons (as well as several relations) enter the service, reality as it was known disintegrates and is replaced by flux, uncertainty, and confussion. This is most strongly seen in the relationship between the main protagonist Dan Thatcher with his brother Alistair, his cousin Quentin, and his friends Cynthia and Beatrice Elton. Like most novels about the First World War written during the inter-war period, God's Sparrows is an anti-war novel. Although I felt the writing to be a little awkward in parts, over all the novel was a powerful and evocative work. It is unfortunate that this work has slipped into obscurity as its message is still quite relevant. The McClelland & Stewart edition published in 1978 is part of the New Canadian Library (NCL) pocketbook series.