Goodreads: Fred’s Funeral

Author: Sandy Day

Published: 2nd December 2017

Source: Copy from Author

Rating: 3/5 (Liked it)

Official Summary: “Fred Sadler has just died of old age. It’s 1986, seventy years after he marched off to WWI, and the ghost of Fred Sadler hovers near the ceiling of the nursing home. To Fred’s dismay, the arrangement of his funeral falls to his prudish sister-in-law, Viola. As she dominates the remembrance of Fred, he agonizes over his inability to set the record straight.

Was old Uncle Fred really suffering from shell shock? Why was he locked up most of his life in the Whitby Hospital for the Insane? Could his family not have done more for him?

Fred’s memories of his life as a child, his family’s hotel, the War, and the mental hospital, clash with Viola’s version of events as the family gathers on a rainy October night to pay their respects.” – Goodreads

(Disclaimer: I received a copy from the Author. Does not affect my review in any way.)

Review: It interesting to know that most of this story is based on facts and a real person. The story is made from information from letters and her families memories of Fred. He had a pretty sad life. You forget how bad and outdated things are back then, they didn’t have the research or the knowledge we do know about mental issues. Or even the drugs. People just brushed it under the carpet back then, it was all about family reputation first.

It did jump quite a bit near the start, going from one year to another year and then back. I did have some trouble keeping track of names and people due to this. That and the family is quite large.

I like how the Author didn’t go over the top, she went into the information she had and kept it simple. She could have made the WWI more detailed but she didn’t based on the letters she had to work with. They simply weren’t allowed to tell the whole truth about the trenches.