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Off My RockerRecommendations from a Book NutWomen and War
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When men were called to fight in World War II, women, formerly regarded as delicate creatures who should confine themselves to kinder-kuchen-kirche, took over their jobs regardless of how backbreaking those jobs were or how much intelligence they required. Women continued to run homes and families as well. Here are a few stories of how war affects women.
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 LAND
GIRLS, by Angela Huth
Rural England’s answer to the dearth of able-bodied men was the able-bodied women who formed the Land Army. Young women left their homes, colleges, and shops to plow and slop pigs, and shovel manure. Huth tells us the stories of three such young women, Agatha, the bright Cambridge student, Stella who is mourning her separation from her naval lover, and Prue, the city-girl hairdresser. We learn of their difficulties adjusting to this new way of life, their loves and their trials as these young women find courage and friendship that will enrich the rest of their lives.
I am not, on the whole, a great fan of "inspirational" fiction since too often conveying a message takes precedence over telling a story. Tatlock, on the other hand, has remembered that first a storyteller must tell the story and so she holds our interest. Augie desperately wants a "normal" family instead of the broken, alcoholic one she has. Despite racial and cultural differences she finds some of this in Sunny Yamagata’s family. At least until this Japanese-American family is herded into an internment camp in one of the more wretched episodes of our history. Tatlock’s treatment of the horrors Americans suffered at Japanese hands and the horrors Japanese-Americans citizens suffered at the hands of their fellow Americans is balanced and poignant. Even as we are tempted to despair at the stupidity of the human race, Tatlock rescues us by reminding us that we each can make a small difference by offering love and sanity in place of fear and hate. Those small differences accumulate.
"In 1940, when I was thirty-one and an old maid, while the whole world waited for war, I fell in love with John Berringer." So begins the story of Linda Voss, a nice Jewish girl from Queens who refuses to admit her love to anyone but her secret heart. But this is not just your ordinary fluffy romance! Our heroine goes from secretary to society wife to spy "in the middle of the Nazi hellhole;" a very dangerous place for a nice Jewish girl to be. Isaacs tells Linda’s story with verve and humor – a lovely heroine! Other women-in-WWII novels for your reading pleasure are The War in Sallie’s Station, by Ballard, Hawke’s Cove, by Wilson and The Language of Threads, by Tsukiyama. |
