The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason

I am thrilled that I stopped resisting The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason. I was leery of delving into another WWI novel, knowing the despair and suffering I would encounter. When I began reading I couldn't stop and stayed up late to finish it.

The novel tells the story of Lucius Krzelewski of Vienna, an inexperienced young medical student who shows much promise but is frustrated by the limitations of medical school. When war breaks out, a friend convinces Lucius that he can get first-hand experience by enlisting as an army doctor.

Lucius is sent to a remote hospital on the Eastern Front. The doctors abandoned the hospital when typhus broke out. In charge is a nurse, a nun named Sister Margarete and under her tutelage, Lucius learns how to doctor and how to love.

Lucius knows his job is to patch the men up so they can be returned to the war. He wants to protect the men in his care whose wounds are unseen but who the army deems fit for service. One soldier particularly affects Lucius and Margarete, a beautiful artist who arrives in winter, so traumatized he cannot stop screaming.

The storyline and characters kept my interest but I also appreciated how I learned so much about the war on the Eastern Front, the level of medical practice and knowledge at the time, and the shifting political landscape of Eastern Europe.

I have read so many terrific WWI novels in the past few years. So much has changed in 100 years. And yet, so much remains the same.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Winter Soldier
by Daniel Mason
Little, Brown & Co.
Publication: September 2018
ISBN: 9780316477604
PRICE: $28.00 (USD)

Read an excerpt here. See photos relating to the novel here.

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I did not expect to find a link between the story and my family genealogical research.

One day when Margarete is away longer than Lucius thinks reasonable he goes searching for her, becoming lost and stumbling into the front. He flees and finds himself far from the hospital.

The names of the cities Lucius passes through were familiar, and then Lucius arrives at Stanislau.

The city appears in the records under many names: first Stanisławów to honor Stanisław Rewera Potocki, then changed to Stanislau, Stanislaviv, and Stanislav, and finally, in 1962 it became Ivano-Frankivsk.

It was the city where my husband's great-parents, Christoph and Carolina, were married. I found their marriage in the Odessa Files. Carolina Reinke has family roots in Stansislawka back to her great-grandfather.

So the novel not only educated me in a general way but also shed light on the landscape of my husband's ancestors and gratitude that the family left the area before WWI.