Small Mercies: A Boy After War

"And there they were then, lazing in the sun from bow to stern, several thousand glowing winners of the war, many shirtless, shoeless, unshaven, many with bad teeth, many with fine moustaches. For more than three years I'd watched, listened to, and smelled women; on those bright decks it was men."

It is 1945, the war is over, and the world is in turmoil. It's a time of relief from suffering, of joy, of hope, of healing, and a time of fierce need for equilibrium. After the insanity of war, people yearned for stability, for a sense of home. Yet the greatest wave of immigration in human history is about to take place, as huge numbers of "displaced persons" seek to remake their lives in new lands after the chaos of World War II.

Just as The Way of a Boy particularized the prison camp experience, so this sequel, covering the two years after the war, brings us back to that boy, Ernest Hillen, and what he thought and felt as he, and the whole world, struggled to recover and "grow up."

Two remarkable sea voyages bring him finally to Canada— een land van melk en honig, according to his Dutch father—where his mother is reunited with her family after sixteen years. Here, he learns about school, baseball, Campbell's soup, Mandrake the Magician, vanilla milkshakes and snow, and takes lessons from a cousin on what it means to be a man.

Adapting to a new language and country at the same time as he adjusts to adolescence is not easy, but always an adventure. With delicious clarity, Ernest Hillen excavates his memories, so that sights, sounds, smells, and textures are as immediate to the reader as they are to the boy.

Haunting, sensuous, poignant yet rich in humour, Small Mercies is a gift of reminiscence, an unforgettable reading experience.