John Dowell narrates the story of two couples, the Dowells and the Ashburnhams, who spend nine years together at European spas, and everything Dowell believes turns out to be wrong. Ford wrote this as World War I began, and the unreliable narrator became a technical resource later writers would exploit. The prose is conversational and devastating; Dowell keeps revising his story as he learns more. The good soldier, Edward Ashburnham, is not good. The heart is a lonely hunter. Ford called this the best French novel in the English language. It may be.