With bursts of rapid-fire descriptive text – not too technical, just enough detail to reconnoitre the cockpit – this is James’s fictional story about a young fighter pilot in the second world war, reflecting on past experiences and how they’ve impacted his life in the present day. His understanding of PTSD is clear and ever-present in these pages: the stories he’s heard filter down, through his pen, and onto every page. Having spent hundreds if not thousands of hours in the company of servicemen and civilians, Holland also uses his oracle-like knowledge to sow the seeds of context that bring a story to life. In ‘A Pair of Silver Wings’, a combination of fact and fiction take us easily between the present and the past as we move from Britain to wartime Malta, and then on to Italy. Read it the first time to simply enjoy a great story, and then read it again to sympathise and perhaps empathise with the way memory can hinder, or heal.
Featured in:
