Canadian Military History is a respected journal. Here is what their reviewer wrote of George Godwin’s Why Stay We Here? in the Autumn, 2003 issue. It has been seventy-three years since ‘Why Stay We Here?’ has been widely available. It was never a huge seller, so it didn’t go through the dozens of editions like some of the better known books of the genre, like ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’. (…) Nevertheless, it is arguably the finest Canadian account of the First World War: more substantial and less derivative than Charles Harrison’s ‘Generals die in Bed’, which usually enjoys that honour.‘Why Stay We Here?’ tells the story of Stephen Craig, a British Columbia fruit farmer, and his trial by fire in the trenches of the Western Front. It has everything one would expect of a novel written by someone who was all too familiar with life at the front: powerful descriptions of conditions in the trenches and in battle juxtaposed against the happier times in the rear areas, touching stories of friendships between comrades in arms, and passages that detail the destruction of the French landscape. But what sets the book apart from other Canadian contributions to the genre is the reflective element. Through his characters, Godwin explores religion, morality, human weakness, and a range of other themes, and the impact on them of the most terrible war the world had ever seen. (…) Why Stay We Here? is not really an antiwar novel. Godwin knew as well as anyone the horror of war, but he also knew that there were certain things worth defending. This gives the novel a complexity often lacking in such books. It is worth noting that when Stephen Craig returns to British Columbia at the conclusion, it is not with a feeling of bitterness or disillusionment, but of hope. This is a reprint from 2002 of the original 1930 edition. The editor, Robert S. Thomson (Godwin’s great-nephew) has added an introduction, historical notes for the text, photos and maps. Why Stay we Here? is the sequel to Godwin’s The Eternal Forest (first published in 1929) which relates his experiences homesteading in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. The Eternal Forest is a mine of insights on politics, economics and mores. See Thomson’s website: www.godwinbooks.com
