Everyone Brave is Forgiven

I've mentioned in many other posts that I've always been drawn to the World War II era, the literature, the history, the music, and even the clothes. I was surprised to read that British author Chris Cleave (http://chriscleave.com/) was venturing into historical fiction with his newest release and was looking forward to reading the autographed copy I picked up at Book Expo last month.

I was intrigued because in his talks with various audiences he explained (and does so again in the preface) that this novel is based upon actual letters sent back and forth between his grandparents during the war. I'm sure that this fact helped Cleave to put a very human face on the characters in "Everyone Brave is Forgiven."

This novel is absolutely about the horrors of war and its impact on the daily lives of those just trying to exist amid chaos, but it's also a book about other wars that were being fought simultaneously, class warfare, and racial warfare, specifically. Mary North, an idealistic young woman just out of what was euphemistically called "finishing school," is the daughter of upwardly mobile parents, her dad a rising politician, her mother in thrall to her husband's ambitions. The last thing they need is a daughter with a conscience!

But Mary wants to be useful. She has grandiose ideas of what she can do for the war effort, perhaps a spy? Instead, she is assigned to teach school. Horribly disappointed but willing to throw herself into it, she falls in love with the children, the more incorrigible the better. It doesn't hurt that she catches the eye of Tom, the principal, an unassuming young man, fearful of the war and plagued by guilt that he hasn't yet joined up like his more adventurous friend Alistair.

The more I read, the more I realize just how much we aren't taught in school. The siege of Malta is one of those appalling incidents that never crossed my radar screen and Cleave brings home the horrific bombing, the starvation, and the confusion of that lengthy battle vividly. Twenty-first century wars are brought to your computer screens in real time. It must be so difficult for younger readers to comprehend how the lack of reliable communication left families in the dark, lovers unsure, and friends confounded as months could go by without word from loved ones. Ships carrying bags of mail were often sunk so that whole swaths of peoples' written lives lay at the bottom of the sea.

Cleave writes somewhat awkwardly about another situation I was unaware of, the extreme prejudice shown toward black Americans working in the UK during the late '30's and early '40's. Mary takes up the cause of a young black boy in her class. Zachary, considered uneducable by previous teachers, suffers from what would be recognized today as dyslexia. Mary, challenges him to learn and when he's sent to the country along with the other children, during the height of the bombing, he corresponds with Mary in London. In fact, Mary reads between the lines, discovering that Zachary is being starved and abused by his "caretakers." Her intervention saves his life, a favor he will one day be able to return in full.

I had hoped to use this novel for one of my discussions at the library in Florida this winter but found that, although I enjoyed it and learned from it, I was too disappointed in Cleave's handling of Mary's awakening to racial disparity and her yearning to alleviate its unfairness. Cleave's continuous use of the word "nigger" throughout the book was disconcerting to say the least. It didn't seem necessary to make his point and became cringe-worthy after a while, particularly because he did such a wonderful, sensitive job with another book about race in a more modern Great Britain, "Little Bee."

Still, Mary is a fabulous character, and her friend Hilda, with whom she enters the ambulance service, is a sympathetic example of a woman completely out of her comfort zone yet willing to put herself on the line rather than observe from her well-appointed apartment while sipping champagne. Hilda matures from a self-absorbed socialite in search of a man to a woman who performs heroic deeds. For those of you who found pleasure in Kristin Hannah's "The Nightingale," Cleave's book will be just the ticket.

Two Quiet Novels of Unrequited Love

From English writer Rachel Joyce whose novel "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" was a runaway bestseller, book club darling, and nominee for the Man Booker Prize, comes a complementary book about Queenie Hennessy, the catalyst for Harold's unlikely walk across England.

I wrote glowingly of Joyce's first novel ( http://bit.ly/1I9lMdq ) and am pleased to tell you that this, her third, is every bit as warm, loving, and heartfelt. But, it cannot stand alone. You must read Harold first to fully appreciate the story Queenie Hennessy dictates from her bed in the hospice at Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Part memoir, part confessional, Queenie's letter is to Harold. The marvelously quirky denizens of the hospice are in a state of high expectation as the news media conflates Harold's once very private, penitential 600 mile walk to ask Queenie's forgiveness before she succumbs to the ravages of cancer. But Ms. Hennessy believes that she's the one who needs to seek absolution and in so doing we readers meet a woman of passion subsumed, of love deepened by twenty years of a life alone but not lonely. If you believe that giving love is a reward in itself, whether or not it is returned, then this is the book for you.

On the other hand, if you think that twenty years is way too much time to spend pining for a lost love, then hop on board Monsieur Perdu's floating bookstore and travel with him and his unlikely followers down the Seine to Provence. Nina George's "The Little Paris Bookshop," though not as much a love song to books as I had hoped, is still a delightful summer confection.  



Jean Perdu has the heart of the best librarians. He can talk with a customer for only a few minutes and deduce exactly which book to prescribe. He considers himself an apothecary, yet this physician cannot heal himself. He is, as his name suggests, lost. Eschewing human contact, he lives on his book barge with his cats, wondering why the love of his life, Manon, left him all those years ago. We learn that Manon did send him a letter of explanation but, stubborn to the core, Perdu had set the letter aside, preferring to suffer in silence.

Not until he overhears his neighbor, Catherine, sobbing over her pending divorce does his heart begin to feel twinges of life. He suggests books. She asks him to dinner. He lends her a table. She unearths Manon's twenty year old letter and gives it back to him. What he learns sends him on a journey of discovery south to Manon's home village.

Along the way he picks up and discards various strays, not just animals but wonderfully colorful characters, like those living in Queenie's hospice, from whom Jean absorbs the wisdom of life's lessons. It is so gratifying to watch Jean's rebirth, to feel the joy as he discovers the pleasure of his physical self and the body he has left languishing for so long. Life can begin at any age if we just open our hearts and minds to it. Thank you  Nina George for the reminder.