If All These Young Men by Florence Roma Muir Wilson

Another remarkable World War I novel by Romer Wilson, "If All These Young Men" is a character study of a group of young 20-something friends in England dealing with the looming, grey presence of the War in their lives. The story begins on Good Friday 1918, and centers on Josephine Miller, a restless, strong-minded young woman who cannot tolerate trivialities or frivolities so long as the War goes on, and who agonizes over how to go on living in its shadow. The characters of Josephine and her friends are patterned on those of Wilson and her own coterie at the time, both male and female, revealing the profound angst of young intellectuals of the time who lived under the dread not only of invasion and national destruction, but also of the alien world that would be left for them when the monstrous conflict was over.