Product Description

"Brothers in War" is the immensely powerful and deeply tragic story of the Beechey brothers, and how they paid the ultimate price for King and country. All eight went to fight in the Great War on such far-flung battlefields as France, Flanders, East Africa and Gallipoli. Only three would return alive. Even amid the carnage of the trenches, it was a family trauma almost without parallel. Their wives and sweethearts were left bereft, their widowed mother Amy devastated. It is a tragedy that has remained forgotten and unmarked for nearly 90 years. Until now. Kept in a small brown case handed down by the brothers' youngest sister, Edie, were hundreds of letters sent home from the front by the Beechey boys: scraps of paper scribbled on in the firing line, heartfelt messages written from a deathbed, exasperated correspondences detailing the absurdities of life in the trenches. From it all emerges the remarkable tale of the lost brothers. Tragic and moving, poetic in its intensity, "Brothers in War" reveals first-hand the catastrophe that was the Great War; all told through one family forced to sacrifice everything.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63826 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Margaret Forster
Deeply impressive ... uplifting to read

Max Hastings, The Sunday Times
A moving vignette about [the war's] tragic price for one family

Mail on Sunday
Successfully restores a human dimension to that epic slaughter

Customer Reviews

A moving story of the ultimate sacrifice
I have to say this is the best book about WW1 I've ever read and I was moved to tears many times throughout. The story focuses on the Beechey family and the 5 sons who sacrificed their lives for their country. The author has done a tremendous amount of research, including following trails all the way to Australia. He's been able to obtain letters and photographs handed down to a relative of the Beecheys.

Most of the letters are written to their mother and youngest sister and are amazing in that none of the sons give any great detail of the horrors they faced, the awful conditions they endured. I found it incredibly moving that each letter is signed "with affection from your loving son....." or something similar.

It's obvious that the author has also done his research about the war and various battles and he's woven them into stories about how each of the Beechey boys met their sad end in a way that made it very readable for me, almost like a novel in some ways.

It's not just a book about war, it's about sacrifice and the loyalty and patriotism many men had for their country and a mother and her sons who made the ultimate sacrifice. I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end.

A true story we all need to know about
This true story of the Beechey family, who endured with dignity and courage the death of five sons in the 1st World War, is extremely moving.
Michael Walsh should be congratulated on the sensitive and thoughtful way he has written about this family and brought their story to us. A piece of history that could so easily have been lost, if not for his endeavours.

When you come to the end of the book, the Beechey family remains with you, as though personally known to you.

Review of Brothers in War
A perfect combination of fiction and non-fiction I found this to be as epic and moving an account of WWI as any I've read (including Sebastian Faulk's Birdsong) - with the added attraction of genuine eye witness acount of events, not unsimilar in some ways to the 'Forgotten Voices' series.

Walsh builds the characters and balances the various narratives to perfection (not an easy task) and has created a genuine page turner that must have taken years of research to put together.

It's hard at times to believe that all this happened less than 100 years ago; and the sense of stip upper lip in the face of seemingly never-ending horrors is truly astonishing.

Very highly recommended.