Book Club Guide

These Days

by Lucy Caldwell · 2022 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

The Belfast Blitz — a chapter of WWII largely missing from English-language fiction
Two sisters across four nights of bombing — different lives, different choices
A city destroyed — and what continues anyway

About this book

Over four nights of the Belfast Blitz in April and May 1941, two sisters navigate love, ambition and survival as the city around them is destroyed by German bombing raids — a chapter of WWII history rarely covered in fiction. Caldwell's Walter Scott Prize-winning novel renders the Blitz from a specifically Northern Irish perspective, usually overshadowed by London's experience.

Published in 2022, These Days won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Caldwell is from Belfast and has described wanting to write about the Belfast Blitz partly because so few people — including many in Northern Ireland — know about its scale and devastation.

Discussion questions

The Belfast Blitz of 1941 is one of the deadliest bombing raids of WWII outside London but is rarely covered in fiction. How does Caldwell bring this specific history to readers — what does she assume they know, and what does she explain?
The two sisters have different lives and different responses to the bombing. How does Caldwell develop this contrast — and what do their different choices say about how people respond to catastrophe?
The novel is structured around four specific nights. How does this compressed timeframe work — what does the immediacy of unfolding-in-real-time achieve?
Northern Ireland's relationship to WWII is complicated by its position within the UK and its own internal divisions. How does Caldwell address this context — does the novel engage with it directly or keep focus tightly on the personal?
These Days won the Walter Scott Prize. What does it do that earns recognition in historical fiction — and what does it add to the body of WWII fiction by bringing attention to an underrepresented event?