The Prisoner's Wife by Maggie Brookes

 "War had ripped across Europe for five years--a great tornado, scattering families, tearing millions of people from their loved ones forever. But sometimes, just sometimes, it threw them together. Like with me and Bill. A Czech farm girl and a London boy who would never have met, hurled into each other's path. And we reached out, caught hold and gripped each other tight."

 It is 1944. Bill is a British POW assigned to work on her family's farm when Izzy first meets him. He teaches her English; she arranges for a priest to marry them. Then they run, hoping to reach the Czech partisans. Nazi soldiers find them first. With Izzy dressed as a boy and supposedly mute from shellshock, she and Bill manage to convince the Germans they are both British soldiers. Together they endure the hardships of a POW camp, managing to keep Izzy's true identity from everyone but a few close friends. Their story is one of love and survival...and it's inspired by true events.

"Bill's stomach churns with dread and misery; Lamsdorf is the last place in the world he wants to be with Izzy. ... He doesn't let himself think about what they'll do when they discover her, as he's certain they will. It's only a matter of time. Being discovered in Lamsdorf could be even more dangerous for Izzy than having been left at home for the Russians, and he's filled with anguish....he knows without any doubt that he would die to save her."

I liked this one! It's compelling and full of heart. Izzy's and Bill's situation brings out both the best and worst in the men around them. Once I started, I couldn't put this one down. It's very readable. And I appreciated all of Brookes' research, and the way she grounded their impetuous romance in historical detail. And I liked that their story is based on something that actually happened. It made it an even more powerful novel. I gave it 4 stars.

Happy Reading!

 

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

     "I don't know what the country's comin' to," the fat man continued. His complaint had shifted and he was no longer talking to or about the Joads. "Fifty-six cars a folks go by ever' day, folks all movin' West with kids an' househol' stuff. Where they goin'? What they gonna do?"

    "Doin' the same as us," said Tom. "Goin' someplace to live. Tryin' to get along. That's all."

That just might be the theme of this novel: regular, ordinary people doing the best they can, "tryin' to get along", in a world where the cards all seem stacked against them. Just out of prison, Tom Joad comes home to find his family driven off the land they've farmed for generations. These sharecroppers are hard workers, but what are they without their land? So, they sell everything they own and set out for California, hoping to build a better life there. But there aren't jobs for them in California, at least not ones that pay enough for them to live on; and though they scrimp and scrabble, they never seem able to get ahead. Loss and tragedy seem to be their lot in life. 

In this novel, John Steinbeck skillfully depicts what life was like during the great Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s, as well as the hardships, hopes and defeats of the Joad family. At 455 pages, this isn't a fast read. But there's a rhythm to Steinbeck's prose that I really appreciate; it's almost poetic. Like in this paragraph:

"66 is the path of people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert's slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight."

Did I love this one? Not exactly. But only because the Joads' story is so sad. No matter how hard they try they never get ahead; things just keep going from bad to worse for them. And I hated the hopelessness of their journey. But I do like the way Steinbeck writes. He tells a powerful and sweeping story, and I can see why The Grapes of Wrath is considered a classic. And I'm very glad I read it. Written in 1939, this one counts as my 20th Century Classic for Karen's Back to the Classics Challenge.

Happy Reading!