What is so extremely fascinating about The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West is its primordial focus on the domestic domain rather than the battle grounds. It is extremely distressing to even fathom what the family members of the ones who go to war undergoes. The anguish of leading a day to day life of oblivion of not knowing with what is the fate of the loved on in the clutches of war is evident in this novel and so is the heartbroken acceptance of receiving a broken person back in the family.

Chris was a soldier whose shell shock lead him to forget the recent years of his life and the blissful years of marriage with his wife, Kitty. What remained in his mind was the days of his youth which he spend in a fervorous stance in love with the first woman he ever loved, Margaret. The adult Chris with his teenage dream was becoming an increasingly throbbing liability for his wife and sister. The precarious memories which he had left in his mind only yearned for Margaret. Together his past and his present mingle in the eyes of cousin Jenny, who in turn yearns for the boy who was her playmate.

Devastating and vehement, West's prose stays much longer than the 90 pages she weaponizes in making the reader clutch the book very close to heart.