This is the current selection of FaceBookEnds, the new book club that I have joined. Obviously, the club is based in Facebook and seems to be an interesting mix of people, some of whom I know and many that I do not. We read this some time ago in my other book club - quite some time ago - I'm pretty sure I remember who chose it, and it was just her turn again, and not for the first time since we read it. In fact, I am pretty sure I was still teaching at that other place at the time, which makes it at least four years ago.
I'm really glad I reread it. It is a delightful read. It is set in the period immediately following WWII and is, of all things, an epistolary novel. I have not read many of them and most that I have read are a bit strained. This one is done so well that I had totally forgotten that it was not a conventional narrative. An advantage, perhaps, is that all of the characters get to speak in their own voices and through their voices a very clear picture of the one character who ties them all together emerges. It is extraordinary that the character of Elizabeth is so clearly drawn and so dominant when she is not present in the "present" of the story at all.
This time I read the end notes and learned that Mary Ann Shaffer began the book, but because of ill health asked her niece, Annie Barrows, to help her finish it. Shaffer died before the book was published, but the collaboration seems virtually seamless to me.
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