The Wing of the Night
by Brenda Walker

In 1915 a troopship of Light Horsemen sails from Fremantle for the Great War. Two women farewell their men: Elizabeth, with her background of careless wealth, and Bonnie, who is marked by the anxieties of poverty. Neither can predict how the effects of the most brutal fighting at Gallipoli will devastate their lives in the long aftermath of the war.

The Wing of Night is a novel about the strength and failure of faith and memory, about returned soldiers who become exiles in their own country, about how people may become the very opposite of what they imagined themselves to be. Brenda Walker writes with a terrible grandeur of the grime and drudge of the battlefield, and of how neither men nor women can be consoled for the wreckage caused by a foreign war.

I found this to be a beautifully written, evocative novel. Although I read it as I'd set myself a challenge to read all the Miles Franklin short-list, I was particularly drawn to this novel as my grandfather fought at Gallipoli. The twists in relationships and the damage that war can inflict on those left behind and those who return is well told. Not the ending that I expected, but true to the story. Not everything ends up happyily ever after. I'd recommend this to others.