The Stranger's Child

I get why this is considered good, but man did I struggle, even with the audiobook. I'd tried reading this a couple times before and just couldn't get into it; having made it through the audiobook, I get why I couldn't. It sounds like such a good story, but it's just executed so dryly and, at times, confusingly. There's a kernel of a good story/book here, but this just isn't it. The overall premise of the war-time poet, killed in action, possibly gay (it's clear in the first section, but it's left unknown for the people in following sections trying to figure things out), and the poem he left in an autograph book, starts well, if a little slow. Then each section jumps about 10-20 years, and you're left trying to figure out who's who and why we're following them. We follow the owner of the autograph book, a young man that wants to write about the poet, and then, I'm not exactly sure the point of the person we follow in the last section other than that he's interested in these people too. Like I said, there are bits of a good story here, I just wish it was told better.