Lou Berney: November Road, Harper Collins, 9780008309336, paperback, April publication

German edition: Destination Dallas, Harper Collins

Lou Berney’s “November Road” was nominated as one of the best books of 2018 by the media, among them the Washington Post and Newsweek. I really loved this gripping, atmospheric 1960ties story, set right after JFK’s assassination with a cast of very likable, shady and intriguing characters.   Lou Berney is a new discovery for me; I will definitely check out other novels by this Edgar Award winning author. He is a terrific writer reminding me in parts of Chandler but he has his own distinct voice with short, clipped sentences.  

Frank Guidry works for the mob in New Orleans and is one of the most trusted, smartest men in the employ of big boss Carlos Marcello.  Frank’s luck runs dry when Kennedy is killed in Dallas and he realizes everyone connected to Carlos and Dallas turns up dead within hours. Frank knows too much himself and decides to hit the road heading for Vegas before ending up a corpse himself.  

Charlotte, smart and witty, made a bad choice by marrying too early leaving all her ambitions behind. Ending up with an alcoholic as a husband, two young girls and a dog, she is bored stiff as a housewife pretending contentment in small town Oklahoma. After a disastrous Thanksgiving dinner she packs up the car while her husband is sleeping off yet another hangover, taking her girls and the dog hoping her courage will not desert her.  As she drives off, California comes to her mind.  

Barone, the hit man sent out to kill Frank, is sniffing out Frank’s well covered tracks second guessing where he might be heading. Eventually luck sends him into the right direction.

These three characters and story lines give the novel their color, voice and tempo. When Charlotte gets stranded after an accident, her and Frank’s paths cross, as destined by fate. The suspense becomes even more gripping when the unthinkable happens, they fall in love.   

I will not reveal any more as it would spoil a major part of the book  but I rushed back to this Tarrantino like plot as fast as I could, loved every page of it. 

The title of the German edition is terribly misleading , Dallas only triggers Frank's escape and is never a destination.  

 

Bart van Es: The Cut out Girl – A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found, 9780241978726, paperback, Penguin, Non-fiction, Costa Book of the Year 2018

German edition: Das Mädchen mit dem Poesiealbum, Dumont Verlag, gebunden & E-Books

When the prestigious „Costa Book of  the Year 2018“ was awarded this year,  I learned through an Instagram posting of the publisher at Penguin whose publishing I highly value that it had gone to  Bart van Es’ „The Cut out Girl“ .

This is one of these books you keep thinking about long after you finished reading, a deeply touching combination of history book and family memoir. How very brave of Bart to investigate a family secret and how courageous of Lien to open her heart and grant him access to her life story.  I knew some historical facts about the fate of Jews in Holland during Nazi occupation but Lien’s memoir provides a much deeper insight. I had absolutely no idea so many Jews went into hiding in the Netherlands, most of them were unfortunately betrayed and sent to their death. 

Lien’s parents decide to give her away to Dutch foster parents in 1940 hoping that she would survive the war in hiding. Bart van Es’s socialist grandparents were her foster parents, Lien soon learns to trust and love them and becomes close to her foster siblings. During a Nazi raid she can barely escape with the help of an underground network who move her around until she is finally placed with a Calvinist family in the Dutch countryside for the duration of the war.  Learning of her own parent’s death in a concentration camp after the war is over; the van Es’ family takes her in again and eventually adopts her.  So why it is that after returning to the family she loved Lien’s name has almost disappeared from being mentioned in the van Es family?  Bart’s curiosity as an Oxford scholar leads him to a painstaking research of Lien’s life evolving into a deep friendship and understanding between them.

Bart van Es's writing weaves back and force between his conversations with Lien, his own investigation visiting the places where Lien lived during the war narrating her life as a child, both their joint family history and finally her adult life and relationships. 

I still think of the trauma Lien experienced, the painful incidents which lead to several dramatic misunderstandings, the hurt and loss finally affecting her adult life. But this is also the story of many people's kindness, love and courageous efforts that went into saving Lien.  This book went under my skin and has a happy ending.