Wow, what a great turn out with 10 people attending January’s book club! We had a lively discussion. This is one of those books that will leave you feeling a bit traumatized by the end. As several book club members said, it’s like watching something horrible happen, yet you can’t look away. This book alternates narration between two German women, Trudy, in Minnesota in 1993, and Anna, Trudie’s mother starting in Germany in 1939. No, that’s not a typo. Trudy is spelled differently in the two timelines. The story starts with the funeral of Anna’s husband, Jack. He was an American soldier who participated in the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and he met Anne in the nearby town of Weimar. He was taken with Anne and married her soon after, taking both her and 3 year old Trudie to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy is now a professor of German history and intently interested in her mother’s past and her parentage, but her mother refuses to talk about that time. Trudy’s only clue is a photograph of her and her mother with a Nazi officer. Trudy wonders if he is her father. You will have to read the book to find out! This book is an easy read despite the difficult subject. However there are no quotation marks around dialogue which may take some getting used to. This book leaves you with questions. There are loose ends and missing stories leaving you wanting more details!
The Novel Book Club meets next on Thursday, February 19 at 7:00pm to discuss Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey. If you want to join the discussion, ask for the book at the front desk and come to the meeting. Discussion questions are provided with the book to get you started. You can also find the book club on Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/CPLNovelbookclub
