When We Were Young and Brave

Finished February 11

When We Were Young and Brave by Hazel Gaynor

This historical fiction novel was inspired by real events. The story is framed by one of the narrators, Nancy, looking back at this time from 1975. Near the end of the book, the framing is completed with a more full explanation of what happened to the various characters after their time in China ended. 

The main story begins in December 1941, with Elspeth Kent, one of the teachers at the Chefoo Mission School considering resigning and returning to her home in England. She came to China after her fiancé was killed in a mining accident and she couldn't see how to move on there without him. But her plans are thwarted with Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and their declaration of war against the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Allied countries. 

Among the students at the school is Nancy Plummer, along with her older brother, and Nancy's friends who include an American girl named Dorothy (nicknamed Sprout as she is tall and thin) and Joan (nicknamed Mouse because she is small and quiet). The girls are part of a Brownie troop and studying to move up to Girl Guides. Elspeth and another teacher, Minnie, lead the girls in this endeavour. 

When the Japanese arrive to occupy the school, the headmaster is taken away, the Chinese servants are sent away, and the soldiers label everything the property of the Japanese emperor. When Minnie tries to make a stand, she is beaten with a pole by one of the soldiers, and Elspeth tries to intervene drawing attention to herself. We watch as the situation evolves over the years. 

Without the servants, the teachers and students must cook and clean and the teachers try to manage morale. Elspeth and Minnie use the Girl Guide teachings and badge earning to get the girls to work and treat the situation optimistically. After a year, the group is moved across town to another school, which has been abandoned for some time. There, they have to make the spaces they are billeted in liveable, and consider safety and continue teaching. The headmaster is back by now and is a great leader in this and the future situations. 

When they are moved again, it is farther away, to an internment camp near Weihsien, where they are the most recent additions. They find support from some of the other prisoners, who have organized a library, and a system of work responsibilities. 

With two narrators, Elspeth and Nancy, we get different viewpoints from different levels of understanding the situation. The author did a lot of research, trying to talk to survivors from Japanese prisoners and using real examples, such as the presence of the Olympic runner Eric Liddell in the camp. 

I found the story interesting and believable and liked the nuances of the people, with both bad and good people among their Japanese captors. I also enjoyed the use of the Girl Guide training and expectations to motivate the young girls and keep up their morale.  

The Unicorn

Finished September 23

The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch

This strange and eerie novel is set in a remote part of a country that may be Ireland, although it isn't clearly stated. Marion Taylor has answered an advertisement for a governess following an amicable but painful breakup. She is nearing 30 and unsure of whether her future holds a marriage or not. Part of why she found the advertisement appealing is the name of the home she is going to: Gaze Castle. But as the book opens, she finds that it is quite far from the nearest railway station and remote even from neighbours. She has uneasy feelings almost right away, fighting the urge to flee as she is driven to the home. 

The home is a rather ordinary, yet large house, not a castle, and she also soon finds that she hasn't been engaged to teach children, but rather to teach and be a companion for a woman similar in age to herself. There are other mysterious elements to the place, and she finds the roles of many of the other people there unclear. The woman she will work for is Hannah Crean-Smith, a woman who seems delicate in health, and never leaves the premises. The man who collected her, Gerald Scottow seems to be in charge, and may even be under orders to limit the activities and visitors to Mrs. Crean-Smith. 

She also finds that the husband of her employer is alive, but was injured badly in an incident that seems unclear on the cliffs near the house. One possibility is that his wife may have tried to kill him after being found in an act of infidelity. The chauffeur is Jamesie Evercreech, but he is also some sort of distant relative of Hannah's as is his sister Violet. Violet Evercreech seems to act as a housekeeper, with numerous "black maids with casts in their eyes and incomprehensible accents" that she seems to direct. There is also Denis Nolan, a man who seems to deal with animals as well as other unexpected tasks. 

The nearest neighbour is a recluse, an older man named Max Lejour and in the summer his daughter Alice and son Pip come to visit, as does a family friend Effingham Cooper. 

As Marion becomes more and more confused and unsettled by the atmosphere of the place, she thinks that she must make some sort of plan to free Hannah from this imprisonment. 

This is a story that relies on the geography and remoteness of the location, the odd characters, and the sense of foreboding that comes on Marion after encounters with certain people or elements. 

A book that draws you in, so that you need to know how things unfold. Murdoch is a master storyteller. 

Where Have You Been Bobby Marr?

Finished July 15

Where Have You Been Bobby Marr? Friend, Felon, Hero by Morris Dalla Costa

This biography is of a man who underwent many challenge, mental and physical trauma, PTSD, bad choices, incarceration, and personal loss. Bobby Marr was born in 1948 in London, Ontario, the second child of his parents. His father was a veteran of World War II, and a hard worker, trying a variety of types of work in an effort to support his family. His search for work soon took the family to Texas and the children grew up there. Bobby was good with his hands, liked cars, and was a confident young man. When the Vietnam War began, he thought about his options, leaning towards heading to Canada. But his father, having served his own country during war, pressued Bobby to do his. 

Bobby trained as a medic, and lasted longer than many of his fellow soldiers in Vietnam, but was eventually wounded badly enough to be sent home. It was then that his life began to really go in a bad direction. The support for returning veterans from Vietnam wasn't there as it had been in other wars. Media had brought pictures of some of the atrocities done there to those at home and that turned many against the veterans. The war was an unpopular one to begin with, and that didn't help. The government support was also lacking, both in financial support being given in a timely way and in the lack of mental health support that was badly needed. As Bobby made choices on his gut and feelings, these choices weren't always in his best interests. 

Bobby is a man that cares about his fellow man, particularly those less well off. His time as a medic showed his caring impulse, as did his actions while incarcerated as he tried to help not only himself, but others caught in a system that was not set up to rehabilitate the inmates, but to wear them down. 

This book starts with some of the bigger events in his life and then moves back to his roots, telling of his family situation and his childhood, and continuing from there. His life story is well told, with compassion and real interest, and while for me it was a slow start, once I got further in, it really gripped me. 

Bobby's story is one of many of men of his generation, and serves as enlightening about the mistakes society has made in the past. 

Yellow Wife

Finished March 27

Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

This historical novel was inspired by and based on real historical characters, which I love. There are also some real historical figures who appear in the story. The author had recently moved to Richmond, Virginia when she saw a plaque about the couple who inspired this story and dug into their history to learn more.

The main character of this novel and the one we see through the experience of is Pheby Delores Brown. She was born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia and raised unusually. The plantation owner's sister schooled her in everything from reading, math, and geography to piano, and even on one occasion took her out shopping as if she were not a slave. Pheby lived with her mother Ruth in a room in the Loom House and both worked as seamstresses and weavers for the plantation, doing both fine work and clothing for the other slaves. When the master's sister died and the master married, she did not continue this treatment, and took against the girl. 

As the book opens, Pheby has recently been moved to serve the master's wife when her maid that she brought with her died of fever. The master has made this choice, not his wife. Pheby is looking forward to her eighteenth birthday as she has been promised freedom then. 

But things conspire against this fate, and her hope of eventually marrying her fellow slave Essex Henry, who has been allowed to hire himself out to save money to buy his freedom. Instead, she is unexpectedly shipped to Virginia to be punished and sold at an infamous jail, nicknamed Devil's Half Acre. There she is taken by the jailor into his household and given both kindnesses and ill treatment by him as she figures out what she must do to survive in this hostile new world. Living right in the heart of the jail, she witnesses atrocities daily and is limited in what she can do to make a difference in the lives that pass through. 

I found this book very interesting, showing an aspect of the system of slavery that I hadn't seen before. The character of Pheby was interesting, but so were many of the secondary characters that emerged. I appreciated the author's note explaining her inspiration and research as well to place this work in context. 

Cinderella Is Dead

Finished November 20

Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

This is a completely different take on Cinderella and I loved it. Here, the story of Cinderella is one based on real people in the kingdom of Lille. She's been dead for a couple of hundred years, after dying fairly young. She and Prince Charming had no children, and the princes that followed didn't either. They choose their successor from a distant place where they are trained for this purpose. 

Every year, there is a ball and all the eligible young girls are required to attend. There, they get chosen by the men that attend. If they aren't chosen by the third year of attendance, their lives are forfeit and they either are sent to servitude or death. 

This is Sophia's first year at the ball, and her parents are eager that she make a good impression. Sophia knows that what is happening isn't right, and she desperately wants to escape and live a life that she chooses for herself, but this is not looking like a real possibility. Especially as Erin, the object of her affections doesn't want to take such a risk, but would rather comply with her family's expectations and those of the prince and his men. 

The kingdom has also developed to a situation where many men treat their wives and daughters as possessions and without respect, and many women live sad lives. 

When Sophia, on the run from a desperate situation, meets an independent young woman Constance, who knows more of Cinderella's true story, she finds strength in that knowledge and becomes determined to change the kingdom for the better.

This is a story that turns the traditional fairy tale on its head in every way. And I loved the feisty characters of Sophia and Constance as they fought the established regime. 

Intelligence-Slave

Finished December 2
Intelligence-Slave by Kenneth Lin, produced by L.A. Theatre Works

This short play has a full cast, with Josh Stamberg taking on the role of Curt Herzstark, and Daniel Stewart taking on the role of the boy Finn. It tells the story of Herzstark, who was an Austrian industrialist working on the invention of the pocket calculator. He was taken by the Nazis to a concentration camp, and from there to an underground location to complete the work on his device. Also located underground was an armament factory. Herzstark knows that if he completes his device he will be killed, despite their promises to "Aryanize" him. When, after considerable time, the device is still not complete, and the Germans send down a boy, with a talent for mathematics, to "assist" Herzstark, he knows that the boy is also keeping tabs on him and he must be even more careful about his work.
This play is very well done, with believable performances by all involved. It is based on a true story, including an incident told by Herzstark himself about his experience. It is part of the Relativity Series, featuring science-based plays.

Behind Closed Doors

Finished September 27
Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

For me, this was the best thriller I've read in ages. This debut novel was unputdownable. I stayed up into the wee hours as I just had to finish it. The plot is chilling. The story is told in two timelines. They aren't that far apart and they both move forward, so at some point the "Past" timeline actually intersects with earlier "Present" timelines.
We know something is wrong early, and gradually learn just how wrong the situation is, and what is happening when no one else is around.
The plot here opens up thoughts on how little we know beyond the surface of what we see, and how we infer things from what we see.
This is a book about control and how fear can be used to make us do things we never thought possible.
Before she married, Grace had a successful job and a good life, if sometimes a lonely one. It is that vulnerability that opens her up to being used by a man that has his own agenda. It is a book about power and influence and about how so many take things at face value without looking closer at what is really happening.
Great first novel, and I'll look forward to seeing more from this author.

Just Send Me Word

Finished October 11
Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag by Orlando Figes

This book is based on a collection of letters between Svetlana Ivanova and Lev Mishchenko over many years and interviews with them and others. The couple donated their private archives to Memorial, a human rights research charity in Moscow, and Figes became aware of it shortly thereafter. The letters span the time from July 12, 1946 to November 23, 1954. There are 647 letters from Lev and 599 from Svetlana. Most of these letters were not sent through official channels and so were not written with censors in mind, although they did use some code in case the letters fell into unfriendly hands.
The two met in September 1935 in the Physics faculty at Moscow University where both were students. Svetlana's father Aleksandr Alekseevich was also a physicist and graduate of the University, then working as deputy director of the Resin Research Institute. Her mother Anastasia Erofeevna was a Russian-language teacher at the Moscow Institute of the Economy.
Lev's mother Valentina Aleekseevna was a teacher and his father Gleb Fedorovich Mishchenko studied physics at Moscow University and then studied to be an engineer at the Railway Institute. He was a professor at Kiev University. Lev's parents moved to Beryozovo, Siberia to escape the Bolshevik revolution, but it found them both there and they died there after imprisonment and torture. Lev was raised by his grandmother, his Aunt Katya, and his mother's aunt Elizaveta Konstantinovna. He was also supported by his father's close friends and later by his Aunt Olga.
In June 1941, Lev had just passed his final exams and was readying himself to go on to study cosmic rays, when the war started. He was put in charge of a supply unit, but found that the front lines were in chaos and was captured by the Germans on October 3rd. Taken to a prisoner of war camp, Lev refused to spy for the Germans when pressured although he did work as a translator. He attempted to escape once and was recaptured, but during the final days of the war, when on a death march, he managed to escape with a fellow prisoner. The two were discovered by US troops and he was asked to emigrate given his physics education, but refused, wanting to go back to Moscow and hopefully Svetlana.
It is at this point that things got much worse for him. The Soviets treated all returning POWs as prisoners and collaborators, holding them in bad conditions, questioning them repeatedly trying to force confessions, and eventually tricked Lev into signing something they only read part of to him that had him admitting his guilt. On November 19, 1945, he was sentenced to death, which was commuted to ten years in labour camps.
He arrived in Pechora in March 1946, and was assigned to the Pechora wood combine, where he was able to get assigned to a drying unit, then a sawmill, and finally the power station, mostly due to his engineering and science knowledge. Svetlana, meanwhile, was working on rubber, in a job that had her with access to state secrets. This made her relationship with Lev very risky to her.
However the two not only wrote each other continuously, but Svetlana travelled to Pechora and made secret visits into the camp to see Lev. Their loyalty to each other was strong and enduring and they confided their feelings to each other without reservation.
Even after Lev was freed, they didn't marry at first due to his status as a freed prisoner. He even found job prospects difficult. But on September 17, 1955, there was an amnesty for Soviet servicemen who had collaborated with the Germans, which meant they could finally be together and lead a more normal life.
This is a moving story and also illustrative of both live in the labour camps and the general restrictions of life in Moscow as well. Figes has done a good job of pulling information together from the letters, interviews and other sources to make this narrative coherent.

Rose Under Fire

Finished September 18
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wien

Rose Justice is a young American woman flying with the ATA during the later years of World War II. Her father ran a flight school in the US, and she had been flying from a young age. In the ATA she works with Maddie, a young woman we met in the book Code Name Verity. Rose is independent and enthusiastic and with an uncle high up in the War Ministry, she gets some opportunities others don't.
When she gets the chance to fly her uncle to Paris after the city was liberated, she jumps at it, and agrees to ferry a plane back to Britain afterward. But on her trip back, something goes wrong and she ends up captured and taken to Ravensbruck, one of the German's concentration camps.
While Rose is a fictional person, the story of Ravensbruck is not, and the author uses many historical sources to ensure that the story told her is accurate in its fact. This part of the story is difficult and one of the things that helps the reader through it is the knowledge that Rose does survive her experience. The author deliberately limits Rose's knowledge to that which a woman in her situation would be aware of, not giving the full experience of the atrocities of the camp. One other thing that helps the reader through this story is the amazing attitude of the camp victims, the fight they exhibit, the ways of working around the limitations and the cruelties and the risks they take to survive. The small daily rituals, and ways they have of buoying each other up and the small delights they find in their very limited lives.
Rose also writes poetry and the poems written during her time in Ravensbruck and shared with her fellow prisoners there evoke more than the text descriptions, putting the emotion into the experience.
A wonderful book that brings history alive.

The Village

Finished June 29
The Village by Nikita Lalwani

This novel is set in southern India, in a unique prison, an open village. All the prisoners have been found guilty of murder and have exhibited good behaviour in traditional prisons, allowing them the opportunity to come here for the remainder of their sentence. Their families live here with them (a requirement), and they learn skills that are transferable to their future life. They may work outside the Village, even start their own businesses. The local governor is behind the project, having come up with the idea. Ray is the main character here, and she is a BBC journalist who has come here to direct a documentary about the prison. She and two others from the BBC, Serena and Nathan will live in the village for several weeks, getting to know the people who live there and tell their story. But the three have different ideas about how to go about this, and different motivations. For Ray, it is the first project that she has brought forward the idea for, and despite her experience on other projects, she lacks confidence. Ray is also of Indian heritage herself, and the only one of the three who can speak the language. Because of the cultural knowledge and language ability, she is able to get to know people there in a different way than the others. Serena is a few years older than Ray, with more experience, a woman who just wants to get a good story and get on with things. She can be very focussed, but tends to treat the inmates as characters rather than real people. Nathan has his own experience with prison, for a lesser crime, and is a bit of a handsome rafe. As Ray begins to make connections with the people and finds out their stories, she also finds herself torn between compassion and getting a good story. She finds herself pressured to press upon those in the village to take actions that aren't necessarily in their best interests. It is an interesting story that shows the common theme of westerners coming in and taking advantage of people of another culture. It also shows the mixed emotions of the prisoners themselves, who feel compelled to participate in this life for the benefits it gives them despite the true wishes of their families. It shows the ego of both the journalists and the governor in their sense of knowing what is best without asking those involved. Some of the stories too show the conflicted nature of the crimes, many of which were committed in self-defense. An interesting look at a difficult issue.

Children of the Jacaranda Tree

Finished June 15
Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani

This is the first novel by Sahar Delijani and draws from her own family history.
Azar and Ismael are taken to Evin prison when Azar is pregnant with their daughter. Neda is born while her mother is in prison. Parisa and her husband were eating dinner with their son Omid when the police came for them. Later, Parisa's sister Leila came for him, finding Omid sitting at the table surrounded by the violence of a search of the apartment. Omid's sister Sara was also born while Parisa was in prison. Their cousin Forugh also came to life with Leila and her parents after her birth. Her parents, Simin and Behrouz, Ismael's younger brother, were also in prison. There are many other children whose parents were imprisoned following the revolution; some were reunited, and other' parents never came out of Evin.
This is a novel not just of those times, the young people who felt betrayed after the revolution and were imprisoned for their passionate and dedicated belief in their country's future, but also of their children. Children who lost those early years with their parents; children who lost one or both parents entirely. Children who knew the truth of their history; children who were protected from the secrets of their parents' youth. Children who grew up in Iran; children whose parents took them out of their country in hopes of a better future. Children who now find themselves either participating in or observing another rebellion against the government. This is a story of Iran, its history, and its people.
I was able to meet Sahar Delijani and learn from her the makings of this story. Her own parents were imprisoned and she drew on the facts of their experiences and the experiences of other relatives and friends, but chose to tell her own story of the inner lives of those imprisoned. This is a story of two generations that love their country passionately, but don't always feel that their country is seen by the rest of the world as they see it.

Suspenseful and Insightful

Finished October 29
Room by Emma Donoghue
This book begins in Room, the garden shed where Jack lives with Ma. Jack is five and Room is all he has ever known. Ma was brought here seven years ago and has been here ever since. It is Old Nick who comes to visit at night. He brings food and other things the two need. When he comes Jack is supposed to be asleep in Wardrobe, but sometimes he isn't asleep. Ma works hard to keep Jack healthy, both mentally and physically. She makes crafts and invents games and limits his TV time. But Ma worries about a time when she won't be able to keep Jack safe, and so she comes up with a plan.
This book speaks in Jack's voice of his world and his reactions to it. At the beginning Room is his world, and as Ma slowly begins to reveal to him what exists Outside, we see his struggle to deal with this new knowledge. Both characters show realistic reactions to their circumstances and that is the strength of this book, the voices. I went into this world thoroughly as I read and it came alive for me.
Seeing how someone deals with being a prisoner and trying to look after someone else in that environment is a real eye-opener and you begin to realize all the things to think of. A well-done story with a lot to say.