Homeland
By Clare Francis,
Macmillan, £ 16.99

Homeland tells a post-war story. English writers are obsessed with the effects of the two World Wars, especially the second one, which spelt misery for people on both sides of the Atlantic. So it does not come as a surprise when Clare Francis decides to write about the sufferings during a war fought sixty years ago. It has been rarely highlighted in fiction that Poland and the Polish suffered no less than any other people in World War II. The Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 ? followed by the deportation of millions of the Poles, the amnesty, the formation of the Polish army in Soviet Russia, a terrible camp life, and the unwelcome attitude of the British to these soldiers who had nowhere to go ? is taken up by Francis. But she deftly skirts the time of war.

The novel starts when servicemen return to Britain from different parts of the world in the harsh winter of 1946. Among them are also soldiers of the Second Polish Corps who do not want to go back to the country of their origin. The story is set in the wetlands of Somerset. There is the remarkable young man named Billy Greer who comes to stay for a day or two. He succeeds in staying on in order to come close to Annie, the lady he had left at the beginning of the war who is now living alone with her daughter.

He finds his uncle?s willow farm neglected and his aunt paralysed by a stroke. But he manages to hire the services of a Polish labourer, a war veteran named Wladyslaw Malinowski. Homeland is the story of these two men, one bent on leaving the place, the other with nowhere to go.

With the turn of events, they change places. Billy stays back in Somerset, having won over Annie, and Wladyslaw plans to go to Canada. The idea of home thus shifts constantly for the two. The crowd of characters sometimes makes one feel that Francis has taken more on her plate than she could handle. Flor, the wife of Uncle Stan, is the only character who neither moves, nor acts nor talks in the story. What function, then, could she possibly serve?

There are several other characters who fail to grow with the novel. It is difficult to guess who the central character is, since Francis starts with Billy and ends with Wladyslaw. Francis tries to gather the different strands of the story too fast. Two of the characters die sudden deaths, and a third has a close shave. The dialogues try too hard to imitate life and be spontaneous, but they once again fail to make the cut as good fiction. Homeland has a good storyline and intelligent characterization, but lacks in dramatic intensity. The only thing, perhaps, to commend the author is that she writes credibly about the feelings of men. But she is still a storyteller trying hard to become a novelist.