In Memoriam by Alice Winn x Cellier Des Demoiselles, Corbières
‘And it was a magical thing, to love someone so much; it was a feeling so strange and slippery, like a sheath of fabric cut from the sky.’
The Book: In Memoriam by Alice Winn
They say don’t buy a book for its cover, and it’s a good thing I didn’t with Alice Winn’s In Memoriam. Although I’m usually a sucker for great book design, my copy arrived bone-white and coverless, anonymous from the five sides that weren’t its spine. Without its dust jacket, it sat in my fireplace for few weeks - arranged to sit with all the other books with white covers in our house - rather than taking its (arguably) rightful place on amongst the foamy-teal novels of our study.
Yet despite being stripped of that visual allure, it still crept to the top of my TBC list. The mono-chrome title bothered me from its nook, almost calling out to be read despite its nakedness. I’m glad it didn’t disappear. Because when I finally started reading, I couldn’t put it down. It’s about friendship, love, loss, a generation torn apart by the ‘war to end all wars’ and it’s so beautifully written that I’ve struggled to find the right words to talk about Winn’s debut novel even though I’ve rarely wanted to recommend a book so strongly.
In Memoriam’s main plot follows two boys - Sidney Ellwood and Henry Gaunt - as they go from a prestigious countryside boarding school to the trenches of France. Told through their letters, clippings from the school paper, as well as the perspectives of both characters, it’s historical fiction at its finest.
The glimpse of life at Preshute is one of privilege, idealism and youth. Based on Winn’s own school, Marlborough College, it is in those early pages that we discover Ellwood’s seemingly unquenchable love of poetry. He is, himself, poetic and charismatic and in love with his country. “It’s a form of magic, all this,” he says early on. “Cricket and hunting and ices on the lawn on summer afternoons. England is magic.” It is so young of thought, so eager, and he believes even more wholly in the glory of war, the gallant death of a soldier. One of his recurring motifs comes from Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade, with his faith in ‘the noble six hundred’ eroding into post-truth fury throughout the novel.
On the other hand, if not for his mother’s fears about anti-German attitudes and a white feather from a stranger, the half-Bavarian Gaunt would have likely followed his ambition to go to university, studying Classics and denying his infatuation with Ellwood. Aptly named, Gaunt is a quieter, more serious young man, obsessed with how he appears to others. But he’s just eighteen when he enlists and the shift in his letters home is so abrupt - first talking how ’training is exhausting but rather idyllic’ and how ‘the men are a jolly sort … no bullying of any sort.’; a few pages later murder has become a ‘quaint idea’.
The two of them are very different characters and Winn does an amazing job of rendering them through letters and dialogue - you can absolutely see why she was successful as a scriptwriter. They feel so real. Likewise the trenches - the mud, the walking dead, the boyishness of these soldiers - it’s so visceral, full of so much gut-wrenching, heart-twisting detail.
Winn’s knack for characterisation and setting come together in the backdrop of Preshute and their school paper, The Preshutian. Throughout the book these remain the backdrop, the place the characters look back to, long for, dream of. According to an interview with the New York Times, Winn went through hundreds of her own school’s newspapers written 1913 to 1919 - devouring the hundreds of essays and articles and poems and letters and Memoriams that filled them before, during, and after the Great War. In this sense the school itself is also a character - it is a pocket community that’s devastated as name after name is marked down as Killed In Action.
We will remember them, say the memorials, never forget. Yet we do forget. As someone who went to a similar school, who used to walk by wooden plaques listing all the boys who’d died, and who once visited Belgium’s endless wartime graveyards on a school trip, I know we forget. The scale. The horror. The fact that these were boys, barely adults most of them, whose worlds never expanded beyond school. We become inured to such tokens of memory. But Winn refuses to let us here. Instead, she invokes rage, despair, horror and hope. It’s an unforgettable story. A monument in a novel.
A lot of In Memoriam is a tragedy. Of course, it is. The scenes from the trenches of Loos and the Somme are brutally descriptive even as they allude to the vivid, visceral grief of Wilfred Owen, and the violent, wild rage of Siegfried Sassoon. Ellwood cites, writes, and fights with poetry - it brings out the pathos of everything they go through. Yet, alongside the horror, the love story that develops between Ellwood and Gaunt is also gorgeous and unapologetically sexy. Both boys are halfway in love before the story even begins but life in the trenches obliterates the line that they never crossed at Preshute. It is a beautiful, hopeful, desperate love and a respite for them admist the horror. There’s a line that stands out, describing how ‘when [Gaunt] and Ellwood were gentle with one another, there was a sense of awe to it. Their tenderness was hesitant and temporary, like a butterfly pausing on a child’s hand.’ It’s just exquisitely done.
Lyrical, gut-wrenching and full of love, this is a book that’s perfect for fans of Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles or Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy. I could keep writing on, but I’ll pause here to talk about wine instead. You might need it after this one.
The Pairing: Chateau Durfort, Cellier Des Demoiselles, Languedoc-Roussillon / Corbières AOP. (Grenache Carigan, Syrah)
Now, I thought I was going to hold onto this wine for ages, waiting for the book to show up that deserved to be paired with my favourite wine. Because yes, this is my absolute favourite wine of all time. My introduction came, like many of my recommendations, from Unwined in Waterloo. It was on their Women in Wine menu in 2021 and it was genuinely love from the very first sip. I ended up going home with a case of the 2020 vintage - I wish I’d bought more! - and I’ve just restocked with the 2022.
There are so many reasons why I think this wine is perfect for Winn’s novel - not least the fact that its name is a tribute to the women of Aude, who took over from the men who had gone to the front in the First World War. This is a wine with history, it’s a heady, creamy wine, juicy and deep - a classic Corbieres - and a match made in biblioeno-heaven.
The Wine: Chateau Durfort is a high-altitude terrior run by the Ouradou family in Corbieres. It’s part of the Celliers des Demoiselles cooperative - a group of 60 winegrowers across four appellations - and is considered something of a classic in terms of its style. Grown in shale soil, it is a Grenache-Syrah blend (another thing you’ll likely discover that I love), and goes through traditional vinification before being aged for 12 months. It has won multiple gold medals from Gilbert and Gaillard as well as recognition from Decanter.
Tasting Notes: If I could get away with just calling this wine delicious, I would. But let’s try the notes. The things that stand out immediately for me are dark berries - blackberry, black currents, black plum - soft spices and smokiness. It’s luxurious when it comes to mouth feel - I often describe it as creamy or yogurty and there’s a hint of that on the palate too. Rich tannins, good acidity. I just love it and it deserves this book.
Where can I buy it: Unwined! It’s £19 for a bottle, £108 for a case of the 2020. You can also find the 2021 at Vinatis UK (£11.06 for two bottles) and the 2019 at Vin Cognito (£13.95). Is the 2020 worth it though? Yes. At least in my opinion.
Fun facts: Another one about the book rather than the wine this month - a review of Winn’s novel in The Spectator that has some really interesting analysis for folks who don’t mind a few spoilers.