Review: Powerful True Story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 21, 2014
I had been offered the ARC of "Army Of Worn Soles"-- a perfect title for this poignant true story-- in exchange for an honest review, which I readily accepted after reading the summary. This novel is based on the real-life accounts of the author's father-in-law, Maurice Bury, who had been drafted into the Soviet Army during World War II. Due to the relationship, I knew this would be a special and moving tribute. I wasn't wrong.This powerful story opens with Maurice, on the cusp of death, in a German POW camp rolling a glass bottle over his tattered uniform's shirt, crushing lice. His energy is quickly sapped, and he slumps against the barrack's wall, numb. A familiar face enters the courtyard: A German officer, who had been Maurice's best friend, Bohdan. From this chance meeting, the story rolls back in time to when Maurice and Bohdan met at school and proceeds into Maurice's draft into the "Red Army," which he'd thought he'd be immune to due to his Canadian citizenship.What the reader follows Maurice into once he is deployed is horrific. Bury shows the atrocities of war vividly. It's shocking how cruel humans can be. As POWs, Maurice and his captured men endure beatings, starvation, and overwork, until a miracle happens. As I write this, my mind wanders to the other POWs in that camp who didn't have their miracle, just as it had done when I read the scenes. Bury does a great job of showing a sane life before war-- hardworking university students, whose greatest concerns had been passing challenging classes. Little did they know, they'd soon be putting one another in their crosshairs on a battlefield.Well done, Scott Bury. You have greatly honored your father-in-law by preserving his story, and have given the rest of us a glimpse into a piece of history that I deeply wish no one had experienced.