by Joan
“Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given
up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep
men free. We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village
kindly.”
So reads the heart-wrenching note pinned
to the Tyneford Church door by villagers on Christmas Eve, 1941. In The House at Tyneford, NatashaSolomons has crafted a perfect novel by imagining the stories of a
“ghost village” requisitioned by the War Office.
With touches of Downton
Abbey and The Guernsey Literary and
Potato Peel Society, The House at Tyneford (Plume/Penguin) is both tragic and
hopeful, an intricately woven love story set on the coast of WWII England.
A
Jewish nineteen-year-old, Elise lives in a large Viennese apartment amongst
maids and furs and music with her mother, a famous singer, and father, a
renowned author. As the years preceding the war continue, little by little the
maids disappear, the once-grand apartment becomes worn and the family is faced
with harsh decisions. Forced to leave for England to work as a house parlour
maid while her parents, older sister and husband use the only four visas to
America, her father sends her off to keep safe his latest novel, stuffed inside a viola
Elise hasn’t played in years.
As
an outsider to Tyneford, Elise is alone and haunted by her memories of her
parents and sister. On her first night, she sneaks into the back garden where
she rinses her face and hair under a water pump. When she meets Christopher
Rivers, the head of the manor house, she bumps her head and he brushes away her wet hair from her forehead to see if she’s bleeding.
Later
she thinks, “I can’t be certain that the moon was full, but if it wasn’t it
ought to have been. Whenever I think back to that night, I see a white lantern
of a moon hanging over the stable yard, the wind shivering in the marram grass.
As in a dream, I am both the girl in the scene and some other self, watching
her. I see Mr. Rivers sliding back the girl’s hair, and I feel the warmth of
his fingers on my forehead. I watch that other Elise cross the yard and slip
into the dark house.”
Elise’s
long hair is “undignified and unsightly in a dining room,” says the head of
staff and butler, and she is forced to cut off her long braid. With it goes a
little more of her pride. Over the next few days, as she learns English and the
exhausting duties that painfully stretch in front of her, Mr. Rivers shares his
collection of her father’s novels, much to the chagrin of the other household
staff. Finding spare free time, she steals away to the beach where she
unleashes into the wind a tirade of newly learned profanity. It is then she meets the
handsome, disheveled Kit, Christopher Rivers’ son returning from Cambridge. Soon
they become friends, sharing a passion for literature and frivolity.
Elise
learns this manor house is not like others, the normal rules seem to bend and
twist as the war comes closer to England. She is swept away by her love of Kit,
but soon he must leave to join the fight.
With Natasha Solomons’ exquisite prose, we are transported to
the aging manor house, the windswept seaside and a bombed countryside. She has created
an intelligent, heartbreaking plot with well-drawn characters fighting for hope
in the midst of a country in despair.
To
me, the novel hidden in the viola serves not only as a reminder of her father,
but also represents the elusive, unreachable reunion with her family. I
finished through a cloud of bittersweet tears and ached to read more, wanting
to read from the start once more, knowing I would never again read with
surprise those last magical pages.
I’m
fascinated with WWII-era dramas and The
House at Tyneford is about as perfect as they come. I am now reading Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English,
Solomons’ first novel, and eagerly await her next, which I understand she is
finishing as I write this…
You can order The House at Tyneford from an Indie bookstore or the Read Pink version is now available for order at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
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