A Richer Dust: Family, Memory and the Second World War, Calder, Robert Lorin. Published by Viking Canada, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2004. First Canadian Edition. 8vo up to 9½” tall., xii, 271pp., illustrated. In fine, unread condition; jacket has very light edge rubbing with closed tear lower spine.
“When Captain Ken Calder returned home to Canada after five years of fighting in WWII, the last thing he expected to find was another man living with his wife. Three weeks later, he took his own life. Calder uses his uncle’s wartime journal and letters, as well as newspaper accounts and military memoirs to vividly recreate the horrendous battlefield conditions in Italy and Holland. Amid bombs and artillery fire, amid seas of mud and endless rain, soldiers kept alive a vision of home and hearth to keep them going. In Ken Calder’s case, as in many other instances, that vision proved to be an illusion. A Richer Dust explores the profound effect that the suicide had on Captain Calder’s parents, the brother whose alcoholism led to his being institutionalized, and the two boys who grew up idealizing their soldier uncle. It is a powerful exploration of a case of unrecognized post-traumatic stress and a profoundly moving account of war and its aftermath.”
