A Soldier’s Son: An American Boyhood during World War II
Won an Honorable Mention in the 2007 Maine Literary Awards

John Hodgkins was eight years old when his father was drafted into the army and left for Europe to fight in World War II. After his return, John’s father never spoke much about the war, but John knew he’d kept a diary. After his father’s death, John opened his diary and two boxes of memorabilia.

Reviews
"Peopled by flesh-and-blood, real-life characters who are sometimes weak, meddling, petty, and self-righteous, sometimes loyal, decent, and generous, but always human and believable, A Soldier’s Son is memoir the way memoir ought to be, loving but unsparing and unsentimental. Don’t miss it." --Robert Kimber, author ofand Living Wild and Domestic

"The lost world of the war years, a world of pain as well as growth, all brought to life with a sharp eye, sharp memory, and no flinching. There are very few memoirists with the economy of language, clarity of memory, sense of humor, stoic charm, and plain honesty of John Hodgkins. He’s written a hell of a good book." --Bill Roorbach, author of Summers with Juliet and Temple Stream

"A remarkable memoir about life in a rural Maine community during the Second World War.... Hodgkins poignantly and unsparingly recalls his family’s experience on the homefront." --Maine Historical Society

"Welcome insight into Maine-related military history and everyday lives.... A Soldier’s Son is one of the most surprising and honest accounts of the home front that it has been my privilege to review.... One of the most insightful and incisive portraits of a Maine family in the 1940s. Better, it illuminates the home front in a fresh and honest way." --William David Barry, Portland Press Herald

"Three hundred-twenty-five pages, and when the book was over, I wished there were more pages." -- The Bridgton News

"A Soldier’s Son is valuable on many counts, for its integrity, and for the vivid charm and compelling humanity of the people whose lives it so successfully preserves." -- The Franklin Journal