Review: Ripple Effect: Because of the War by Jenny Ferns

Some of the most traumatic and impactful events in human history are tied to war, which tears apart families, history, ideas and entire continents with their senseless brutality. In Ripple Effect: Because of the War, the first book in the Ripple Effect series, author Jenny Ferns steps down from the macrocosm of the battlefield to the peripheral effects of violence and chaos away from the frontlines. As this book’s title implies, the long-term results of war go much further than those who were wounded or killed.

Veronica and Rachel are sisters, although they both fell on opposite sides of their parental tree. In the chaotic times of World War II, Veronica longs for a brand-new husband who is already off at war, while Rachel laments her newly discovered pregnancy, and the lack of any partner to help raise the child. After Rachel’s untimely death by bombing, Veronica ends up as the caretaker for her daughter, Susie, and begins a long maternal vigil in the countryside, waiting for her new love to return.

The heart of this book, and the most impressive portions of the writing, come once Richard gets back from the war. As the months and years pass, it becomes clear that Veronica’s husband brought the war back within him. Resentment and distrust, distance and alcoholism, and the immediate struggles of becoming parents to a young child threaten to tear the nascent couple apart. The book becomes less about a war and more about the entropic aftermath, with the British countryside and that specific historical period working as silent characters unto themselves.

These domestic problems may seem paltry in comparison to the war, but Ferns injects tension and a foreboding sense of doom in even the most innocent of scenes. She does an excellent job of probing the damaged psyche of all the key characters, ensuring that readers are fully invested from early in the novel. Importantly, despite the overarching sadness that pervades so much of this story, there are still moments of light, and a sense of hopefulness at the close.

Like Sebastian Faulks and other contemporary authors who examine this infamous period in history, Jenny Ferns walks a fine line between narrative and exposition, firmly embedding her characters in the fabric of a vivid past. While the dialogue doesn’t always feel true to the time period, those occasional slip-ups are forgivable given the richness of the prose. The author is British by birth, but has spent most of her life in North America, which makes the historical accuracy all the more impressive. The book does get off to something of a slow start, with slow-rolling introductions of the protagonists, but the pace quickly picks up – and stays there.

Tackling challenging issues of substance abuse, PTSD, stress management, fidelity, grief, trauma, and familial love, this book is not always easy to read, but it is very difficult to put down. For anyone who has ever experienced a personal loss due to war, or has buried their own skeletons of regret, Ripple Effect will bring shivers of recognition and tears to their eyes. Jenny Ferns proves herself to be a humanistic, compassionate, and compelling writer who can plumb the depths of history for timeless, and timely truths.