My review of Henry Green’s wartime novel, Caught, is up at the Rumpus today here. First published in 1942, Green describes the novel as follows:

“This book is about the Auxiliary Fire Service which saved London in her night blitzes, and bears no relation, or resemblance, to the National Fire Service, which took over when raids on London had ended.

The characters, while founded on the reality of that time, are not drawn from life. They are all imaginary men and women. In this book only 1940 in London is real. It is the effect of that time that I have written into the fiction of Caught.”

We are so used to reading novels and movies that are written and created long after the events they describe and portray; it is worthwhile to read a novel like Caught that is the product of the uncertain time of the event itself.