作者通过两本笔记本和一幅幅画卷串联起外公于尔班·马丁的人生，饱含深情地回忆了外公生前的点点滴滴，于尔班·马丁成长于第一次世界大战以前，是虔诚的教徒，具有中世纪的骑士精神和强烈的道德自律意识；在战场上他没有过片刻迟疑，把牺牲视为荣誉；在战后他勤劳工作、从不抱怨，把苦难视为理所当然的试炼；他对待绘画像对待宗教那样虔敬，对待家人像对待绘画那样真诚，然而，他也曾有不为人知的往事和秘而不宣的激情，这些秘密并没有随他而去，而是以一幅幅画作的形式留下来，等待着被打开和被理解。
Shortly before his death in 1981, Stefan Hertmans’ grandfather gave him a couple of filled exercise books. Stories he’d heard as a child had led Hertmans to suspect that their contents might be disturbing, and for years he didn’t dare to open them.
When he finally did, he discovered unexpected secrets. His grandfather’s life was marked by years of childhood poverty in late-nineteenth-century Belgium, by horrific experiences on the frontlines during the First World War and by the loss of the young love of his life. He sublimated his grief in the silence of painting.
Drawing on these diary entries, his childhood memories and the stories told within Urbain’s paintings, Hertmans has produced a poetic novelisation of his grandfather’s story, brought to life with great imaginative power and vivid detail.
War and Turpentine is an enthralling search for a life that coincided with the tragedy of a century—and a posthumous, almost mythical attempt to give that life a voice at last.
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