Sonia Married

A civilian's return to London after a year of internment opens this novel of English society during the First World War. Familiar streets feel strange, soldiers crowd the city, and censored letters have left the narrator poorly informed about the changes at home. His account brings wartime public life into contact with private troubles, especially the marriage of Sonia and David O'Rane.

Stephen McKenna follows the pressure of loyalty, reputation and competing ideas of kindness through conversations among friends. Sonia is living with Grayle while friends debate whether O'Rane should agree to a divorce, and what that decision might mean for her future. The dedication places this domestic crisis beside a larger concern: whether the early hopes of moral renewal during war can survive prolonged strain. Readers interested in British social fiction will find arguments about marriage and duty shaped by political ambition and disappointment.