Strange Meeting

By: Susan Hill

Narrated by: Joe Jameson

'Things like this don't happen often in a lifetime...'

John Hilliard, a young subaltern returning to the Western Front after a brief period of sick leave back in England blind to the horrors of the trenches, finds his battalion tragically altered. His commanding officer finds escape in alcohol, there is a new adjutant and even Hilliard's batman has been killed.

But there is David Barton. As yet untouched and unsullied by war, radiating charm and common sense, forever writing long letters to his family. Theirs is a strange meeting and a strange relationship: the coming together of opposites in the summer lull before the inevitable storm.

©2014 Susan Hill (P)2014 Audible Studios

Amazing Narration

Wow!! The narrator did such an excellent job reading this! The voices were so well done I could tell who was who immediately. The narrator really added to an already great story, made it more impactful.

Did not touch me at all

well if you have read all quite in The western front or The forgotten soldier or even The absolutist, you would see That This one wasn't spiceal.

Moving story, beautifully written

This book is about war on a very personal level. It's about how ugliest human death and gore became so commonplace in the daily experience of soldiers in WWI that it desensitized those in the midst of it, and later kept them from being able to face thinking of or speaking of it again. It is about the emotional and mental changes young soldiers had to go through as they struggled daily with mass killing at "trench level," unprepared by anything in their lives up to then.

In this story, death and chaos are juxtaposed in the minds of the young men with thoughts of their families at home--people who can have no idea of what is being experienced by the beloved young people they sent off to war--in some cases because those young people protect their families from the truth by not telling them.

It explains why even now so many who have been to war can never really go home again, because the experience of war can change and ruin young lives well before it takes them in death.

The descriptions gradually introducing these young men to the reality of life and death in the trenches are horrific and heartbreaking. As their growing friendship and love for each other enriches them, we realize it is born less of similarities in their upbringing than of their shared experience and profound change--in the midst of daily slaughter and futility, they understand each other as nobody else ever can.

The building of this story of the deepest sadness and loss and love brought me to tears.

I was very much touched by this book.

Stunning

A beautiful, transcendent novel about the underbelly of war (WWI), and the friendship and love that sometimes grows. Because the novel takes its time, its power in revealing the sorrow, folly,, and sometimes transcendence of 'the human condition' will remain with me.

fantastic

having recently listened to her excellent Book "The Bird of night" and loved it. I was a bit nervous that I would not enjoy this one as much, I'm happy to say that I was wrong. "Strange meeting" is a beautiful, carefully crafted and melancholy love story that will stick with the listener for a long time. Joe Jameson was a perfect choice as the narrator as captured the main characters boyishness and yet he still manages to convey their far too quick progress in to maturity as the war rolls on.

this book is well worth your time!

Over by Christmas

I had read some reviews on this book and was expecting a lot of emotion and sadness throughout the story but this was not the case. It was only towards the end that I felt anything at all. The saddest part of the story for me is what John’s people at home believed was going on and that all was well and would be over by Christmas. The two families were worlds apart in their understanding. Not the most memorable of war stories.

Strange book

I loved detective series, but this book was so different that I didn't mind it was short. I could see the intention but it was laboured.