A Sense Of Things Beyond by Renée Belliveau
A gorgeous work of literary historical fiction, exploring what is commemorated and what is forgotten in times of war.
The Great War had stolen what Rose and Frederick knew of the world and themselves, and only through each other’s pain might they have a chance to find a new peace. Rose spent the war as a nurse at the Western Front. Seeing the devastation and trauma of the fighting firsthand, she patched up the boys whose lives she longed to preserve but was forced to release back into the hell of the trenches. Nursing is now a calling she can’t bear; the returned invalid soldiers are patients she can’t face. Frederick, a Canadian PhD student in Germany, spent four years interned in a horse barn turned civilian prison camp, an enemy alien in a country he’d grown to love and call home. Now he is a fish out of water, working in his late father’s company - which should have been his but is now his younger brother’s - in a job that brings him no joy. Brought together when Rose flees Toronto for her sister’s home in Nova Scotia, their experiences of the war, although vastly different, have the possibility of bringing them together, if only they can confront their deeply buried wounds.
“A Sense Of Things Beyond by Renée Belliveau is a brilliant variation on the First World War narrative.”
A Sense Of Things Beyond by Renée Belliveau is a brilliant variation on the First World War narrative. It is a story told by the forgotten: the detainees of both sides, and the nurses who often went unsung in remembrances, though not by those who received their care. It is also a story of the families left behind to cope with loss and the veil that obscured their understanding of the horror their loved ones experienced. It explores how the 1914/1918 conflict was commemorated in the immediate aftermath, when grief and memory were fresh, but not all those involved were deemed worthy of remembrance.
Belliveau’s prose sings, a virtuoso performance of delicate notes and powerful themes that pulls the reader inexorably into the story. As with the best writing, the reader rides the rhythm of her words, feeling the story rather than just comprehending words, carried by their ebb and flow. And while the themes are heartbreaking and deep, there is a delicacy and optimism to how they are presented. In A Sense Of Things Beyond, Belliveau has created characters of depth and complexity. We know Rose and Frederick, we are them, feel every emotion of theirs as personally as if our own. She deftly manages the juxtaposition of her characters’ outer lives, lived as society expects with a stiff upper lip, against their inner torment and struggle.
This is a book of subtleties, quiet gestures, veiled emotions, of big ideas presented sensitively for the reader to mull over and savour. It is all the more powerful for this. Belliveau trusts her reader and welcomes them into the private lives of the people she has summoned to the page. She has done her research, and it shows in the smallest details of events, places, and mores. This is an intelligent, thought-provoking and thoroughly engaging book, heartbreaking and beautiful, one which bears a second reading to fully appreciate its important messages.
About the Author
Renée Belliveau is the author of the novels A Sense of Things Beyond and The Sound of Fire, which was named a Quill & Quire book of the year and shortlisted for the ReLit Novel Award, as well as the memoir Les étoiles à l?aube. She draws inspiration from her work as an archivist, where she spends her days surrounded by records of the past. A proud acadienne from New Brunswick, she currently lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia (Punamu?kwati?jk), with her husband.
About the Reviewer
Heather McBriarty is the author of the non-fiction account of the First World War, Somewhere in Flanders: Letters from the Front and a novel of the “Great War” Amid the Splintered Trees. She is a blogger, reviewer and served as a juror for the 2023 Atlantic Book Awards. She is a retired Medical Radiation Technologist, doting grandmother, and avid sailor. She lives by the sea in historic Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
Book Details
Publisher : Vagrant Press
Publication date : Sept. 9 2025
Language : English
Print length : 264 pages
ISBN-10 : 1774714523
ISBN-13 : 978-1774714522