Freddy's War

Winner of the 2012 Robert Kroetsch City of Edmonton Book Prize

Some soldiers claimed to have a good war. Others were not so lucky. In 1939, Freddy McKee is fifteen-years-old when the war in Europe breaks out. His imagination is bursting with the glamour of thrilling battles and heroic acts from the games he played as a child, so two years later Freddy lies about his age and joins the army. Freddy is assigned to the Winnipeg Grenadiers, a companion battalion to the Royal Rifles of Canada that formed C Force, the Canadian army in Hong Kong. Six weeks after arriving in Hong Kong, Freddy becomes a prisoner of war. Collateral damage extends beyond the battlefield and far beyond the years men spend in combat. Freddys war reverberates in the lives of others as far as Edmontons Chinatown and the small town of Trout Creek, Manitoba. Three women who love FreddyJoanna Keegan, her daughter Hope, and a mysterious Chinese woman named Su Lifeel the time Freddy spent in Hong Kong in each of their lives. Freddys war is heavier than the weapon he once carried. It stretches past the walls of his once prison. Freddys war touches his friends and family, and lingers, haunting eacha reminderfor the rest of their lives.