The Last Soldier by Keith Gray

Shortlisted for the Scottish Teenage Book Prize 2017

The official blurb reads:

Texas, 1922, and the carnival is in town. Two brothers, Joe and Wade, are drawn to the Museum of Marvels. Who can resist a glimpse at a real life mermaid, wolfman or dragon? But there’s a new exhibit; the Last Soldier of World War One. He has a message for the boys… and they won’t like it.

A gritty, short read particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant and dyslexic readers aged 12+

Readers’ reviews like –

“Quick but very good read. Partly a horror/ghost story, but also about the real life horror of war for those who fight and those left at home,” (Goodreads.com) and, “The Last Soldier is lots of things: a genuinely creepy ghost story, and a gripping tale of loss, conflict, revenge and redemption. The ghost takes the form of a gruesome exhibit in the Museum of Marvels at a travelling carnival: the remains – real? – of a soldier, supposedly the last to die in World War One. It preys on Joe, a young man fighting his own battles in the small Texas town where he’s growing up, and on his brother, Wade, desperate to stop Joe leaving as their father did, never to return. Thoroughly involving, this is a powerful piece of storytelling.” (Lovereading4kids.com)

– sum things up well.

Life is a hard, hard struggle; living from hand to mouth, with shoes made, “from worn-out tyres…” All the young boys in the story have their own cross to bear – for Wade and Joe, it’s the bullies and loss of their father, gone to fight in the Great War; for bullies Caleb and Sonny, it’s dysfunctional families and severe corporal punishment – so bad, we’d call it child abuse today.

“…It was 1922 and every day that year was hotter than the Devil’s own frying pan. Me and Joe felt like sizzling, spitting sausages just about ready to split our skins.”

This fabulous quote from the very first paragraph immediately establishes the backdrop to the tale: the stifling, oppressive heat, and two boys; growing up fast – their bodies trying to keep up – and on the cusp of adulthood.

The narrator uses the syntax of the child he is and the colloquialisms of the American South to great effect; the reader is immersed in Wade’s thought process – he’s honest with himself, often astute, if poorly educated, a little naïve – and his pearls of wisdom. Here are some more:

“…laughing fit to bust a gut…”; “And they laughed like wolves on a turkey farm.”; “…rattlesnake bathwater”; “gunslingers”; “Y’hear”; “Yessir, I reckon I surely would”; “dime novels”; “bent and hinky”; “We ran rabbit…”; “…crawdaddies…”; “…gotten under my brother’s skin like a blood-sucking tick”

Descriptions of the travelling carnival and its Museum of Wonders – the one ray of light in the boys’ lives – are full of the faded colours and peeling paint of the shabby reality behind the spectacle; “All that sparkle and glitter washes off in the rain, you know,” says Mama, but Wade – the dreamer – still sees, “…strings of jewel-coloured lights all around the field. “They look like happy stars, don’t they, Joe?””

Wade uses animal-based metaphors a lot because for a twelve year old boy in a one-horse town, these are his ready points of reference: people are “dog-tired”; Wade says his, “leg yelped. It bit at me like an angry dog”; seeing the Last Soldier he says, “He smelled like the crushed, dead dog we once found beside the train tracks”; and of Joe, “His hate for Caleb was like wasp in a jar. I could feel the buzzing inside him.”

And the ‘ghostly’ elements of the story are well handled; all the more unsettling for being grounded in the graphic horrors – death and decay – of a real war. “The Last Soldier stepped out of the shadows…His heavy boots tore and scratched on the floorboards. His head swayed loose on his stick-thin neck.”

So, would Clishmaclaver recommend this short novel? Yes, definitely! This is a must-read for all ages, and all sexes; if you want gritty drama with a touch of the terrifying, read this!

It’s worth mentioning that the character Mr Gunther – the owner of the barber shop and Wade’s Mama’s suitor – must surely be named after Sgt. Henry Gunther, “the last American soldier killed on the battlefields of World War I, felled by a German bullet just one minute before the armistice.” – NBC News (nbcnews.com; Nov 11, 2014)

“Almost a century later, the circumstances of Sgt. Henry Gunther’s death remain a matter of debate among historians.

Was he a brave hero who charged into an ambush by German soldiers in the final minutes of of the Great War? The senseless victim of military commanders who kept the fight up hours after a cease-fire was signed? Or a conflicted warrior with something to prove who signed his own death warrant?

Investigative reporting over the years [paints] a more nuanced picture, one that suggests Gunther’s final heroic “charge” was as much about slaying his own demons.” – NBC

So what, if any, parallels should the reader draw between the historical Sgt. Gunther and Keith Gray’s Last Soldier? Is the grim, grizzly Last Soldier of the Museum of Marvels a metaphor for something?

If each character has his or her own cross to bear, much of the plot involves around Wade’s desperate attempts to persuade Joe to not leave; not to ‘sign up’ like their Pa. “Wants to follow in his daddy’s footsteps. A lot of boys do,” says Mama of Caleb. Wade and Joe’s Pa was, “Always looking further than the horizon instead of at the spot where he stood.” “Like Joe?” Wade asks. Atop the ferris wheel, Wade’s imagination is piqued: “From the top of the wheel the town looked so small. Like I could gather it up in my arms… Or maybe sweep the whole lot behind the hills.” Joe had only asked, “Don’t you hate that everything’s so small?” The reader is left wondering where Joe’s demons will take him.

It’s Wade who’s, “got his [Pa’s] wild ideas and imagination,” though… Saving Joe may mean Wade’s learning the difference between, “day-dreaming and imagining,” and the real threat posed to his brother by the Last Soldier.

Miss Stewart.

Image credit – American soldiers being cheered by crowds on their return from France and Belgium, much as Wade and Joe wish their father would. Taken from: https//jefpublications.wordpress.com

 

Commenting on his nomination for the Scottish Teenage Book Prize, Keith Gary said: “I’m surprised, excited and genuinely honoured to have ‘The Last Soldier’ shortlisted for the Scottish Teenage Book Prize. It’s extremely unusual to have a work of short fiction considered for a prestigious literary award and I hope the readers enjoy finding the big story, big characters, and big emotions in such a small book.” (Lovereading4kids.com)