England's history boy

Melvyn Bragg has been a uniquely influential figure in British broadcasting and the arts for over 40 years. He holds the chancellorship of the University of Leeds and a seat in the House of Lords, numerous civic, charitable and business appointments, and a dozen honorary doctorates—and he is the author of 20 novels. In 1999 he began a series of autobiographical fictions based on his upbringing in Cumbria, the fourth (and most personal) of which appeared in April. Just what these novels mean, and what they might go on to mean, are questions that illuminate much that is both important and often ignored in English fiction today.

In The Soldier's Return, the first volume, Sam Richardson returns from war in Burma to a country and a marriage both in need of a new start. Ellen has waited five years for this, but now he's back, she's not so sure. Their six-year-old son, Joe, doesn't like this quick-tempered man who has come to share their bed. At one point a new start in Australia looks likely, but Wigton turns out to be their fate after all, and the family re-forms to fend off the winter of 1947.

By the beginning of A Son of War, the second volume, father and son have grown closer, but the...