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Jan 16, 2019booknrrd rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
In Warlight, a man recalls how when he was a teenager, after WWII was over, his parents left him and his sister ostensibly for a year. His father's job was taking him to Singapore, and the kids were to remain in London in boarding school. Their third floor lodger, who Nathaniel and Rachel call "The Moth", is to be their holiday caregiver and point person in London. The parents depart. Nathaniel and his sister hate boarding at school and decide to live with the lodger. Nathaniel finds evidence that maybe their mother didn't go with their father to Singapore. It is very mysterious, and the lodger is somewhat mysterious and his friends are interesting. Slowly it becomes clear that their mother is involved in something or was involved in something during the war. Things come to a head. In the second half of the novel, Nathaniel is an adult trying to find out more about his mother's wartime activities. Warlight refers to the dim light used to guide traffic in times of war, and is a perfect title for this moodily lit novel. When I first finished this, I was just relieved to be done. It was beautifully written, but left me cold. Over the last couple days though it has grown on me. The prose does seem pretentious at times, but it is wonderfully atmospheric. Its reflections on the nature of memory reminded me of Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending. The WWII spy angle reminded me of Transcription by Kate Atkinson.