The great swindle

The Resource The great swindle
Label
The great swindle
Statement of responsibility
Pierre Lemaitre ; translated from the French by Frank Wynne
Creator
Contributor
Author
Translator
Subject
Genre
Language
  • eng
  • fre
  • eng
Summary
"The year is 1918, the war on the Western Front all but over. An ambitious officer, Lieutenant Henry D'Aulnay-Pradelle, sends two soldiers over the top and then surreptitiously shoots them in the back to incite his men to attack the German lines. When another of D'Aulnay-Pradelle's soldiers, Albert Maillard, reaches the bodies and discovers how they died, the lieutenant shoves him into a shell hole to silence him. Albert is rescued by fellow soldier, the artist Edouard Péricourt, who takes a bullet in the face. The war ends and both men recover, but Edouard is permanently disfigured, and fakes his death to prevent his family from seeing him as a cripple. In gratitude for Edouard's rescue, Albert becomes the injured man's companion and caregiver. Finding that the post-war gratitude for the soldiers' service is nothing more than lip-service to an empty idea, the two men scramble to survive, ultimately devising a scam to take money for never-to-be-built war memorials from small towns. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Pradelle has married Edouard's sister Madeline and is running a scam of his own that involves the exhumation of war victims. In this sorrowful, heart-searching novel, the interwoven lives of these three men create a tapestry of the human condition as seen through the lens of war, revealing brutality and compassion, heroism and cowardice, in equal measure."--provided by publisher
Member of
Awards note
Winner of the Prix Goncourt in 2013.
Index
no index present
Language note
In English, translated from the French
Literary form
novels
Nature of contents
bibliography
Target audience
general

Context

Context of The great swindle

Work of

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