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*Editorial Book Review*
STRAIGHT LINES AND BROWN BROGUES
by David Braybrook
When the battlefields fall silent, only two kinds of people remain: the dead, and those left to carry on.
For Joseph, a young map maker, the lines he once traced with certainty are forever altered by war in a distant country - a conflict that shapes his life long after he returns home.As he builds a new life and family, the threads of loss, trust, and unexpected kinship continue to weave through his days, guiding his steps in ways he never imagined.
Amid the familiar rhythms of daily life, Joseph discovers that the bonds forged in the shadow of war endure - reminding us that hope is found not in forgetting, but in choosing to move forward.
Told in the style of a timeless fable, Straight Lines and Brown Brogues invites readers to witness the futility of war and the quiet, persistent courage of ordinary people in extraordinary times.
Where will the Brown Brogues take you?
There are novels about war that concern themselves with battles, military strategy and the question of who ultimately emerges victorious, and then there are novels that are far more interested in what happens when the fighting stops and everyone is expected to somehow carry on. 'Straight Lines and Brown Brogues', by David Braybrook, is most certainly the latter.
Joseph Miller's fascination with mapmaking begins almost by accident. As a young railway porter, a chance encounter with the cartographer C. W. Stanford introduces him to the meticulous world of surveying. Joseph is bright, curious and eager to learn, and Stanford recognises his potential. What begins as a temporary job develops into something considerably more important, offering Joseph a career and a glimpse of a much wider world than the one he has previously known.
There is something wonderfully innocent about Joseph in these opening chapters. He is fascinated by Stanford's equipment and the precision required to turn fields, roads and buildings into marks upon a map. When the possibility of travelling abroad eventually presents itself, Joseph cannot help but see adventure waiting for him. His father, who has experienced war himself, views matters rather differently. His warning that war bears very little resemblance to the heroic version found in newspapers and history books is something Joseph does not fully appreciate until much later.
One of the most interesting choices Braybrook makes is that the war at the centre of the novel is entirely fictional. The countries, places and conflict have been invented, and I initially found myself trying to work out where the story was taking place and which historical war I was supposed to recognise. Gradually, however, I came to appreciate that not knowing is rather the point. Without familiar countries and historical allegiances to guide us, it becomes much harder to decide who we think the heroes are and who should be considered the enemy.
I thought this worked particularly well because the novel is far more interested in the people caught up in war than it is in who actually wins it. Joseph may not be a soldier, but being a civilian does not protect him from the realities of the conflict around him. His work takes him into places where war is very real indeed, and the adventure he imagined before leaving home looks rather different once he is actually living it.
C. W. Stanford was a character I particularly enjoyed. His relationship with Joseph begins very much as master and apprentice, but there is an understated warmth between them that develops beautifully. Stanford also teaches Joseph to look beyond what appears obvious. A landscape may seem untidy and inconvenient to the person trying to map it, but there is usually a reason why a road bends where it does or why people have chosen to build in a particular place. I thought this was a wonderfully simple idea that became increasingly important as the story progressed.
The use of the straight line was particularly clever. On a map, drawing a line from one point to another seems perfectly simple. The problem, of course, is that there are people living underneath it. Roads, farms, homes and communities do not conveniently arrange themselves to suit a ruler and pencil, and some of the most interesting parts of the novel examine what happens when decisions that look perfectly reasonable on paper meet the reality of everyday life.
Edo was one of my favourite characters. A local man whom Joseph first meets overseas, he is intelligent, thoughtful and not remotely afraid of challenging Joseph's assumptions. I particularly enjoyed the friendship that develops between them because they do not always see things in the same way. Joseph is forced to consider how events might look to someone whose home has become part of a conflict involving foreign armies, while Edo is never reduced to simply being there to teach Joseph a lesson. He has his own beliefs, humour, contradictions and experiences, and I found him one of the most memorable characters in the novel.
Braybrook is particularly interested in what happens after the fighting stops, and I thought this was one of the strongest aspects of the story. A peace treaty can be signed and politicians can announce that a war is over, but the people who actually lived through it do not simply wake up the following morning and discover everything has returned to normal. Communities have changed, families have been displaced, soldiers remain and old resentments have not conveniently disappeared. The war may have ended on paper, but its consequences continue for years afterwards.
The brown brogues of the title provide a much quieter thread through the story. They initially appear to be nothing more than an unusually fine pair of shoes acquired before Joseph travels overseas, but as the novel progresses, they take on a greater significance. I liked the simplicity of this idea, particularly in a story so concerned with the things that separate people. The brogues are an ordinary, everyday object, but Braybrook gives them a meaning that grows naturally alongside Joseph's story.
There is also a lovely domestic warmth running alongside the novel's more serious moments. Braybrook allows Joseph to have a life beyond war and mapmaking, and the relationships he forms become increasingly important as the years pass. Maddy was a particular favourite of mine. She is warm, funny, practical and more than capable of telling Joseph when he is being ridiculous. Their exchanges bring some much-needed humour to the story, and I really enjoyed watching their relationship develop.
Anjaiash was another character I became very fond of. She is young when she enters Joseph's life, and although her experiences have forced her to grow up far too quickly, there is a fierce intelligence and determination about her that I loved. She is inquisitive, stubborn and wonderfully direct, and she is certainly not afraid to question the adults around her. As her role within the story grows, I found myself becoming increasingly invested in her and what the future might hold for her.
Her relationship with Joseph and Maddy was particularly lovely. There is a warmth between them that develops naturally, but Braybrook never allows Anjaiash to lose the independence that makes her such an engaging character. She has her own ambitions and her own ideas about the life she wants, and watching those begin to take shape became one of my favourite aspects of the later chapters. There is hope in Anjaiash's story, but it never feels as though Braybrook is suggesting that hope somehow erases what has gone before.
Education also becomes increasingly important as the story progresses, and I enjoyed the contrast between teaching and the destruction that surrounds so much of the novel. Joseph and Edo may come from very different places, but both understand the importance of giving children opportunities to learn and question the world around them. There is something quietly hopeful about that, particularly when so many of the problems these children have inherited were created by decisions made long before they had any say in them.
There were occasions when I felt the novel could have been tighter. Its ideas surrounding war, borders, occupation and nationalism are revisited frequently, and some conversations become more philosophical than conversational. There were moments when I felt Braybrook had already made his point very effectively through what was happening to the characters, and I did not necessarily need that point explained to me again. A little more restraint in these places would, I think, have made some of the novel's strongest moments even more powerful.
Nevertheless, there is a great deal to admire in this novel. Joseph changes enormously from the eager young man who sees the prospect of travelling overseas as an adventure, and I enjoyed following him through the different stages of his life. Edo constantly made me think, Maddy frequently made me smile, and Anjaiash became one of those characters whose future I genuinely cared about. For a novel dealing with such serious subjects, there is also a surprising amount of warmth and humour, which stops the story from ever becoming overwhelmingly bleak.
'Straight Lines and Brown Brogues' is an ambitious and thought-provoking novel about war, but perhaps even more importantly, it is about what comes afterwards. Braybrook looks beyond battles and victories to the people who have to continue living when the soldiers have supposedly finished fighting. Although I felt some of the novel's ideas were repeated more often than necessary, I found the central premise fascinating and the characters memorable. Most of all, it left me thinking about how easy it is to draw a straight line on a map and how very different that line must look to the people who actually have to live beneath it.
The Coffee Pot Book Club
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