Peter Ho Davies' The Welsh Girl
When I first read the description of this book, I sort of rolled my eyes--it was so Summer of my German Soldier*. I don't know if the jacket-writer didn't read the novel closely or didn't want to really give it away, but it doesn't do this excellent story justice. Yes, there is a POW camp in a small Welsh town in the waning days of WWII, and yes, one soldier and one girl sort of notice each other . . . but that's hardly the main plotline in the book. The girl's story and the German soldier's intertwine, framed by the story of a German-Jewish interrogator working for the British to interrogate Rudolf Hess, who's being held in Wales. See, I'm not giving anything away either, but I'm not making it out to be about some illicit romance, which it really isn't. It's much better than that! Totally an A!
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*When I was in middle school, I met the author of this book at some bizarre book knowledge competition. I would give you more details, but that was about 15 years ago and it's pretty hazy. I do remember my team debating Animal Farm or something, which we weren't actually prepared to do. Otherwise that whole day is a blur. [Except, one of the other girls on the team, Annie, was from the grade below me. She was the daughter of an actress on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and a talented performer in her own right--she danced, I think. When I was a sophomore in college, I found out from a girl in my dorm that Annie had died in a car accident the year before. They'd been church friends.]
4 comments:
okay first - summer of my german soldier. wow. i remember that!
and second - how strange about the Mr. Rogers actress daughter.
Her mom played Mrs. McFeeley.
When I was little a friend I lived with next door to the guy who played Mr. McFeeley and we would go and ring his doorbell and ask his wife if he could come out and play.
Whoa! Did I know you grew up in Pittsburgh???
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