The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany by Gwen Strauss

It was somewhat difficult reading Madness and The Nine at the same time. Both nonfiction and both detailing horrific experiences of two groups of people who were made to endure situations that in many cases would destroy the human spirit.

Strauss tells the story of her great aunt, Hélène Podliasky who was part of the French Resistance during World War II and eight others who were arrested for their actions and sent to Ravensbrück Camp in Germany. During the journey there they became a cohesive group. The others in the group were

Suzanne Maudet (Zaza), Nicole Clarence, Madelon Verstijnen (Lon), Guillemette Daendels (Guigui), Renée Lebon Châtenay (Zinka), Joséphine Bordanava (Josée), Jacqueline Aubéry du Boulley (Jacky), and Yvonne Le Guillou (Mena). While on a death march from the camp, the nine decided to escape. Their journey to freedom is the crux of the book.

Strauss through her research of the time and with the survivors of The Nine, presents a book that is nearly unbelievable as to the heroics of these women. Their 10 day journey is told through the eyes of each woman who has her own chapter in the book. It presents a bit of biography and the roles that they each assumed while on their journey. Their goal was to get to the front and cross into the area that was held by the Allies and especially the Americans. With bloody feet, tattered clothing, and a dearth of food, the reader is brought along on the painful journey with them. They struggle to find safe places to rest and German citizens to trust. At times they played into the stereotypical role of women to advance their cause - helpless and ignorant about war.

Strauss also gives insight into how the Nazis treated the prisoners in the camps, babies snatched from mothers while those mothers were raped, slave labor and starvation. It was painful to read.

The nine women formed such a bond that gave them the strength to have hope and survive. It goes without saying that if they had tried to do this alone, none would have made it. They developed strategies for survival, including trading recipes, one of the more upbeat sections of the book.

The book is so well researched with an abundance of footnotes. At times, I had wished for a more linear account, but understood the rationale for Strauss to write the way she did. Another interesting feature was how the author managed to find the women and/or their surviving family members. It was an intriguing, tho painful read.



 

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

This is my first experience with a Moshfegh novel and it was definitely that - an experience. It is hard to categorize this book as to whether it was funny, depressing, or puzzling. The premise is that the narrator opts to take a year off life and hibernate while filling her body with drugs and television, and old movies. 

Set in 2000, the narrator has worked at a gallery but was fired because of sleeping on the job. She has two friends, Reva a classmate from Columbia and Trevor, a boyfriend from college who are a part of her solitary life. While at Columbia she is orphaned when her parents die within months of each other, causing anguish and despair. The most despicable character in the novel is Dr. Tuttle, her psychiatrist. At many points did I want to slap this woman for feeding the narrator a pharmacological diet of nothing but pills without any regard for interaction or what they would do to a person. But as a result of her parents' deaths, there is an unspecified amount of money and wealth to enable her to not work and have an apartment in NYC. 

As the reader is privy to her year of hibernation, it triggers almost a feeling of pity for the young woman. Reva tries to reason with her, but as a person dealing with her own issues, bulimia, her credibility loses some validity. As the two drive to attend Reva's mother's funeral, their relationship seems to strengthen and the then crumble. At unexpected turns she shows up in the narrator's apartment. She appears one day, depressed, that she she had broken up with her boyfriend, who was also her boss and was consequently being transferred to a new department located in the World Trade Center. (Just a bit of foreshadowing. On another occasion raids the medicine chest to take all of the pills. Upon waking up from a blackout period, the narrator rushes to Reva's where she, indeed, finds the pills. This solidifies her plan of hibernation for four months. 

There is no reason to reveal the ending. That is left for the reader to discover. Moshfegh is a master of language and developing the characters through their voices and the narrator's reaction to their conversations and descriptions. It will be an interesting lecture at the Ten Literary Evenings on 18 February when Moshfegh speaks about her books.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

I have read a number of Kristin Hannah's books and I must say that she is getting to be one of my favorite authors to read. I love her character development, descriptions, and plots. Her writing is descriptive, emotional, and inspirational. 

The Great Alone gives us a picture of the wilderness that was Alaska in the 1970's.  It is the story of Leni (Lenora) and her move with her parents to a property in Alaska that here father, Ernt, inheirits from an Army buddy. Ernt is a Viet Nam veteran, who suffers from PTSD and is angry and ragingly out of control. He is married to Cora, Leni's mother and the three of them have a symbiotic relationship. 

When we meet Leni Allbright in 1973, she is 13. She struggles at being the odd girl out at school and her parents sell her on the move as a chance to begin anew. She reads incessantly to escape, writes, and is an accomplished photographer. She loves her mother unconditionally and is true to her in every instance. After the move to Alaska she seems to come out of her shell and embraces the adventure that the setting provides. She also begins to see how abusive her father has become.

Ernt hasn't been able to keep a job and has the family on the move to "start over." Cora is the daughter of relatively well off parents, her father a lawyer. They are estranged because of their opposition to Cora's marriage to Ernt as a young girl who was pregnant. When they move to Alaska they find themselves in a supportive and unselfish community. However, Ernt gets involved with "Mad Earl" Harlan, who is a paranoid survivalist and who begins to influence Ernt's thoughts in the same direction. The two become drinking buddies which adds to Ernt's simmering antagonism. 

Cora is the ever faithful spouse who is deeply in love with Ernt, even as abusive as he is. The least little thing sets him off and he takes out his anger on Cora. It is not long before the towns people pick up on this and try as they may to convince Cora to leave him, she still loves him and stands by him. 

On the first day of school for Leni she meets Matthew Walker. The two become instant friends. Leni supports him through a series of tragedies and he reciprocates for her. He has lived all his life in Kenaq and that is his desire as he grows older and eventually has a family. The relationship between Leni and Matthew begins to change to a romantic one as they discover they both love the adventure and setting of Kenaq. The reader senses that it isn't going to be all a bed of roses. 

The village of Kenaq is home to many characters whom Hannah lets have the spotlight at times in their relationship to the Allbrights. Tom Walker serves as the direct opposite of Ernt. He is compassionate and a true father. He is seen by Ernt as "the competition" when Ernt feels that he is flirting with Cora. The animosity is more than obvious between them and comes to blows when Tom decides to try to modernize Kenaq.  Large Marge is a large black woman who came to Alaska when she grew tired of the legal world as a prosecutor. She sees what is happening in the Allbright household and takes Cora and Leni under her wing. 

Alaska is also a character in the book. It tests its inhabitants endurance and strength. When the Allbrights arrive in Kenaq, they are constantly reminded as to what they need to do to survive the Alaskan winter. There is reference as to Alaska as a place where one is chosen to survive or forced to leave. The cold gives the reader shivers to be sure. But to those who can survive, it becomes a real home.

We picked this book out for the Gables May Book Club, but copies were hard to get and so postponed it until November. The discussion will be lively, I am sure. The themes of trauma and domestic violence know no boundaries and they are ever present in this novel.  But then, so is a nurturing love, which is seen between the community and its member and between Leni and Matthew. The title, The Great Alone, comes from The Shooting of Dan McGrew by Robert Service.

"Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,

And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;

With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,

A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;

While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? —

Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars."

The poem forges a bond between Leni and Matthew.

This book would rank high on my list of favorites. Tho a completely different book than The Nightingale, the writing is engaging and prohibitive of wanting to put it down before you have turned the last page.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

So much attention has been paid to the 1936 Olympics and how Jesse Owens was such a hero. Hitler was trying to show how wonderful Germany was and did everything in his power to create a venue that would elevate the German people. Imagine his mortification when Owens won 4 gold medals. But Owens wasn't the only thorn in Hitler's side. The U.S. rowing team with member Joe Rantz was another group of unlikely winners.

Although the story of the 8 man rowing team, Brown focuses his account on Rantz and his life and place on the team.The book, in addition to being a life history focuses on the themes of survival and perseverance. Rantz overcame so much to be even able to make the rowing team in Washington as  well as the Olympic team. His home life was basically nonexistent as he was virtually abandoned by his father after his mother died and his father remarried. At a time he survived by foraging in the woods near his home for food. 

Brown also brings the reader into the world of the sport of rowing. The descriptions of the building of the rowing boats and the training that is involved in becoming a part of a world class rowing team. The sport was usually considered for the rich and elite of the East Coast in the 1930s, but the team from Washington dispelled this legend. Can you imagine a ticker tape parade for a rowing team in today's world? 

Upon arrival in Germany, the team faces an even greater obstacle to success - the inequitable treatment of teams not from the Nazi and Fascist countries. At Kiel, where the rowing events were held, the U.S. team was given the outer lane, subject to the wrath of the winds and weather of the North Sea, while Germany and Italy were given the inner lanes, protected from those conditions. 

The book reads like a novel and, although you know the results, the ending is a real page turner. Brown's list of references gives evidence of his thorough research. The interviews that he conducted with Rantz add personal touches. I will be anxious to hear Brown when he speaks in Pittsburgh on 14 March 2016. It should be an interesting and entertaining evening.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

One of the most rewarding outcomes of belonging to a book group is the impetus to read outside your comfort zone. One of the members of the Gables Book Club is a hospice nurse and so suggested and led the discussion of Me Before You.  It is probably not a book I would have read without this stimulus.

The book has but a few characters, but their voices are strong and developed. Louisa Clark has been working at a café in the shadow of a castle in a tourist village in England. As a primary breadwinner for her familial unit, the puts an undue amount of pressure on her to find another position quickly. Louisa lives with her parents, her grandfather, and her sister who is a single mother.

Will Traynor has it all - a wonderful job, a gorgeous girlfriend, and penchant for adventure travel. He has climbed Mt. Kilamanjaro, hiked Yosemite, and explored exotic locations like China and Kenya. Then his world changes one morning when he is struck by a motorcycle on his way to work. He is a quadriplegic who has endured mental depression, physical therapy, and a life confined to a wheelchair watching movies. His mother, Camille, looks to hire a companion for him to help ease the depression and perhaps convince him that self-determined death is not the answer. Will's father has basically given up and retreats to a mistress. Nathan is the medical aide, who helps with the daily routine and manages his medicinal life. 

Lou(isa) is hired to become that companion for a six month tour of duty. Will maintains a tough exterior, but soon succumbs to the wit, humor, and care of Lou. She plans excursions and even a major travel adventure for him. Unfortunately, he gets ill and cannot go, but that won't stop her planning. As she pours so much energy into cultivating a good life for Will, Lou begins to distance herself from her inattentive boyfriend. Her life really is a series of unfortunate consequences. And then she overhears a conversation that Will is determined to go to Dignitas to end his life. As she attempts to deal with this, the reader shares in her struggles and ponders the dilemmas that she feels.

The theme of this book that touches so many lives. Is it right to end a life that will never be fulfilling to the person living it? It was well written and thought provoking and as would be expected, fueled a lively discussion. Moyes writes with a pen skilled in the journalistic way. She presents facts, but gives them a face and voice. It was a very good read and one that will come back with resonance as the reader revisits the problems exposed in this novel. 

On the Island by Tracy Garvis-Graves

I can't remember the last time that I read a 300+ page book in 3 days. That is what happened with On the Island. I am not sure if it is because I was reading it on my iPad (at the time it's only available in ebook format), or because I just got new glasses or if it was because it was such a simplistic novel and required no intellectual commitment on the part of the reader. There has been a lot of buzz about this book and it has shot to the top of ebook best seller lists. Amazon.com readers have lavished praise and so I was excited to read it when our book club chose it for our July selection.

Anna Emerson, a high school English teacher, and J.T. Callahan, a student who needs to spend the summer catching up on his studies because he lost classroom time due to chemotherapy for leukemia, are off to the Maldives where his parents intend to spend summer vacation. After a series of delays and airline complications, they finally board a private charter flight. Mid-flight the pilot suffers a heart attack and the plane ditches into the ocean.  Both J.T. and Anna survive and find themselves in survival mode on a deserted island. By chance they are helped when their shoes, a life raft, and her suitcase wash up on the shore. For the next two hundred or so pages the reader follows their ups and downs as they count the years and holidays during the three years they live there. They are careful to maintain the teacher/student relationship until J.T. turns 18 and they succumb to the tensions that have been building between them. They live through shark attacks, jellyfish stings, bat attacks, and dengue hemorrhagic fever.

The conclusion of the book takes place following the 2004 tsunami and to relate it would be a definite spoiler.  I honestly do not know what the hype is about with this novel. I imagine it meets the need for a fluff beach book for some. For me, I was very uncomfortable reading about a student-teacher relationship that was about more than studying. I cannot fathom how a teacher falls for a much younger student, no matter what the circumstances might be. The novel is told in alternate chapters by J.T. and Anna. If I had not paid attention to the chapter, I would not have been able to discern who was actually relating the events. There really wasn't much difference in the voice or POV. The writing is a bit sophomoric, but the book fills the bill if you are looking for a nice, summer, light read.