Key themes
- Desertion and what a soldier cannot face remembering
- The pursuit narrative — two men sent to bring back a man fleeing himself
- The Scottish landscape as something vast and indifferent to human guilt
About this book
After the Battle of Corunna in 1809, a British officer suffering what would now be called PTSD deserts and flees to the Hebrides — pursued by two men sent to bring him back for an act committed during the retreat that he cannot face remembering. Miller's Walter Scott Prize-winning novel is a pursuit narrative and a study of war's psychological wounds, set against the Scottish landscape's vast indifference.
Published in 2018, Now We Shall Be Entirely Free won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Miller has written several historical novels exploring trauma and its aftermath across different periods, including Pure (set during the French Revolution) which won the Costa Book of the Year.
Discussion questions
- John Lacroix deserts after the retreat to Corunna, fleeing an act he cannot face. How does Miller withhold the nature of this act — and how does the eventual revelation reframe the pursuit narrative?
- The two men sent to find Lacroix have their own motivations and moral complexities. How does Miller develop them — as simple pursuers or as something more ambiguous?
- The Hebrides setting is rendered with great physical specificity — weather, landscape, the rhythms of rural life. How does this setting function in relation to Lacroix's psychological state?
- The novel deals with what would now be recognised as PTSD, in a period before that framework existed. How does Miller render this — using period-appropriate language and understanding, or with contemporary psychological awareness?
- Now We Shall Be Entirely Free won the Walter Scott Prize. What does it do that earns recognition in historical fiction — and how does it compare to other novels about war's psychological aftermath, like Regeneration?
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