Friday, April 10, 2015

A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War and a Ruined House in France

There were two potentially great pieces to this story, but the two pieces together felt a bit disjointed.   

The books description led me to believe that the story was to be about the mysterious end of the author's grandparents relationship.  That story could have been magnificent but both her grandmother and grandfather were pretty close lipped about that.  However, once you learn what the author's grandparents endured in the war it is very clear why they parted and I was actually surprised that it was surprising.  They lived through the terrors of the holocaust, the fear and trauma of war and then the horrors her Grandfather had to endure while acting as an interpreter during the Nuremberg trials.   I occasionally had a small glimpse that there may have been some passion or love between them at one point; but I felt that they had simply ended up together because it was expected.

The larger part of the story was that of the author Miranda deciding to write a book, and what she did after receiving funding to write that book.  It is a wonderful story of traveling to France, buying the old house her Grandparents had owned and recreating a beautiful life there for herself, including meeting and falling in love with the man of her dreams.  

I think that there are two books here and if separated and expanded on both could be really amazing.
I did not dislike the book but it is more accurately a memoir about writing a story about writing a memoir.  

You can get a copy here, I would love to hear what you think!

*I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest opinion.