Rachelle's Response to Broken Ground

Broken Ground Rachelle Ekeli
The emotional scaring and aftermath of the First World War is played out in the community of Portuguese Creek, in “Broken Ground.” The men of the community have returned home from the war in Europe and are attempting to move on with their lives and forget about the horrors that they witnessed or they themselves committed. However, it soon becomes evident that all of their attempts to forget the war is less than successful and that the war is still very much alive in memory to them.
I really enjoyed all the different elements that this story brought forth. The love triangle was an interesting element intertwined between the daily activities of the community and the graphic memories of the war. The amount of dedication and description committed to the war in the novel was great. Author Jack Hodgins, was not only able to write about a war he himself had never seen, but he was able to recreate it in my mind as well.
Another part of this novel that was fascinating was the little bits and pieces of information that was gradually given to the reader throughout the novel about Elizabeth. At first I assumed she was Maude and Mathew Pearson’s child. Then you are almost lead to believe that she was adopted by Matthew while he was in Europe fighting in the war. However, later it becomes clear that Elizabeth is Matthew’s biological daughter and that Maude is not her mother and in fact had to not only open her heart to the little girl, but forgive her own husband.
The paternity of Elizabeth lead me to wonder how often that sort of thing would have happened during the war. How many children there may be in Europe with American, Australian or Canadian fathers they have never met.
Lastly, this novel lead me to a question which I have attempted to answer by searching for documents on the internet. How many men couldn’t live with or deal with the memories of war and resorted to suicide? In my search I found that it was actually a rather high rate. Below, I have provided some links to the web sites I found with information about Soldier suicide rates after serving in a war.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september172007/oregon_suicide_rates_091707.php
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081600266.html
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/6/167
Rachelle