National Network for Equitable Library Service

In 1941, a young man imagines thrilling battles and heroic acts when he lies about his age and joins the army. ?Assigned to the Winnipeg Grenadiers, part of the Canadian army in Hong Kong, Freddy McKee becomes a prisoner of war six weeks after arriving in Hong Kong. Five years pass and Freddy finally returns home from the war, but three women—Joanna Keegan, her daughter Hope, and the beautiful and mysterious Su Li—feel echoes of Freddy’s ordeal in each of their lives. For Freddy, the memory of war is a heavier burden than the weapon he once carried. Freddy must fight to survive in a world that has left him behind. “Veterans traditionally have never shared the hell of their war. Often the only way to get close to their experiences is via skillful fiction. Gritty and well-researched, Freddy’s War takes us to the siege of Hong Kong and back.” —Ted Barris, author and military historian “Wartime love stories are the stuff of cliché, but there’s no false sentimentality in Freddy’s War. With a cool reporter’s eye, Schultz draws on her deep knowledge of China, and of prairie social history, to craft an understated, elegaic story of loneliness, loss, and dislocation.” —Paula Simons, Edmonton Journal