Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay
The Winds of War by Herman Wouk
As a die-hard fan of each of these novels, I can confidently say they have absolutely nothing in common, except for the fact they constitute my favorite books list. Shutter Island is about a disappearance in a mental asylum, This is Going to Hurt is a compilation of the craziest stories of a medical resident, and The Winds of War is a dense World War II novel following a Navy captain and his family.
So, it’s no surprise when I say that as I’ve grown older, I’ve become drawn to three separate niches of literature: psychological thrillers, nonfiction hospital tales, and World War II fiction. I could spend endless amounts of time reading in any of these genres, and that is essentially what I saw my senior project as an opportunity to do.
For my senior project (the workings-on of a senior in a field of their interest for their last two weeks of school), I knew I wanted to read. In an ideal world, that would just mean reading for two weeks. But, I had to have some kind of structure to my project. My limited areas of piqued literary interest narrowed down my options of the types of books I could focus on: psychological thrillers I deemed weren’t professional enough, and there simply aren’t enough varying medical diaries to constitute two weeks worth of work. Thus, I turned to World War II novels.
But what to do with World War II novels? They are abundant, with so many different settings and stories and in so many different subgenres. Subgenres? Hmmm...
There are stories of love, of mystery, of families, and so many more, with their one common thread being World War II. This, I decided, is what I could do, this is what I wanted to do. I found three different books - manageable to read in less than two weeks, but nothing to sneeze at - in three different subgenres. Come From Away by Genevive Graham is a romance between a ex-Nazi and a Canadian woman; N or M? by Agatha Christie is a mystery about uncovering the identity of a German spy in Britain; and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer is a novel about family, the power of reading, and love after German Occupation. I had my books.
But what to do with them? I decided on comparing the portrayal of World War II between them - there had to be something there (right?), but how much would a literary society on the tiny island of Guernsey have in common with a love story taking place in Canada? Well, that’s what you’re about to find out.
Come From Away by Genevieve Graham
Come From Away is first and foremost a love story. It focuses on Grace, a twenty-something Canadian woman, as she struggles with the absence of her three brothers while they are off fighting in World War II. Rudi, a German soldier whose U-boat crash lands upon a nearby beach, eventually ends up meeting Grace and decides to become a deserter. The story focuses on Grace’s internal struggle: can she trust that Rudi really wants to change, or is his Nazi past too much to overlook?
At the beginning of the novel, Grace is very adamant that Allied and enemy soldiers are nothing alike. She fervently believes that German soldiers are savage beasts, who only have one thing on their mind: murder. She rejects her parents’ ideas that German soldiers are still men...at least until Rudi comes along. Grace deals with the conflicting notions of what the outside world is telling her about Rudi and what she feels in her heart; she desperately wants to believe that people can change, and - spoiler alert - at least in this novel, they can.
Come From Away focuses less on the military aspects of World War II - its extent is German U-boat details - and more on the humans behind the soldiers. It demonstrates man’s capacity for love: how our hearts are sometimes stronger than our brain, how people come into our lives for a reason.
Such obvious, (excuse my cynical opinion) borderline sappy content is lost in N or M?. Christie’s novel is all about suspicions, paranoia, and who is trustworthy, as the story follows British agents as they discover the identities of undercover German spies. The only similarity between the two novels is that the characters in N or M? view any potential German the same way strangers view Rudi: skeptically, suspiciously, and with a we-should-keep-an-eye-on-you mindset.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society has far more in common with Come From Away than N or M? does. The characters of Elizabeth McKenna in Guernsey and Grace in Come From Away are strikingly similar, as they both see beyond a uniform or nationality - exactly the opposite of the task designated to the British agents in N or M?. In Guernsey, Elizabeth McKenna falls in love with Christopher Hellman, a captain on the German ship that has come to occupy the island. She looks past his identity as a Nazi and talks with him about books, nature, and life. Elizabeth does what Grace eventually does with Rudi: both women look past the men as World War II enemies and instead see them as people.
I liked the take-home lessons from Come From Away: people can change and don’t judge a book by its cover. I’m not the biggest fan of love stories, but the backdrop of World War II in this one appealed to me and of course made it suitable for my project. Come From Away provided a home-front perspective of the war, and grappled with a problem - are national enemies individual enemies? - that was a very real one during World War II.
N or M? by Agatha Christie
By simply saying this novel is by Agatha Christie, you already know arguably the most important detail of this book: it’s a who-can-you-trust mystery. The novel’s main characters, British retired spies Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, visit the bucolic French resort Sans Souci. Allied intel claims two German spies are staying there under names that begin with N and M, and it’s their job to unmask them.
Unsurprisingly, and as previously mentioned, the novel revolves around suspicions, paranoia, and accusations. Christie writes multiple times throughout the novel that there are Nazi spies even in the highest ranks of the British military, allowing the reader to grasp the full extent of German infiltration; Tommy’s and Tuppence’s task is not a leisurely, relaxed one - the success of Allied operations depends on them.
Thus, where Come From Away has the Nazi deserter, N or M? has the undercover die-hard national socialist. One of Come From Away’s principal lessons - don’t judge a book by its cover - is nowhere to be found in Christie’s novel, as the Beresfords’ job is to find the Germans and expel them for being German. Grace sees Rudi for who he really is, beyond his Nazi past, and that is exactly what Tommy and Tuppence are not doing.
N or M? Has more in common with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Even though Elizabeth McKenna’s husband, Christopher Hellman, was a kind German soldier, he is the minority. Throughout the letters that make up Guernsey, there are countless stories of Nazi soldiers who are harsh, arrogant, and selfish. They raid the houses of the already poor islanders, they make the weak and ill do strenuous manual labor, they kill the neighborhood cats and dogs for food, etc. While this type of cruelty is far different from the white-collar crime of espionage in N or M?, both novels depict the Germans as the obvious enemy in ways Come From Away did not.
(Spoiler alert? Not if you’re familiar with Christie’s writing style…) In typical Agatha Christie fashion, the N or M? mystery gets wrapped up nicely and tied with a bow. The undercover Germans are caught and expelled, and Tommy and Tuppence save the day. But don’t let the happiness of the ending fool you - the novel is jam-packed with lies, deception, and anti-German sentiments. If you so much as have an unplaceable accent, you’re automatically put higher on the Beresfords’ watchlist. It’s filled with exactly the type of dishonesty and manipulation absent in Come From Away and honest, humble Rudi; its portrayal of Germans as evil contrast with Captain Hellman, but align with every other Nazi soldier described in Guernsey. N or M? walks a thin line between being very similar and very different from Come From Away and Guernsey, providing a distinctly different narrative just like the kind every person involved in World War II could tell.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Anna Shaffer
Lastly, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, or as I refer in shorthand, Guernsey. The book that took me the longest to get through, but I think that’s simply because it was the last one for me to read. It’s an epistolary novel, which makes the structure memorable and the narrative - everything told in first person, as you would write a letter - unique.
With so many different letters going to so many different people, it can be tricky to keep track of all of the separate storylines. Here’s how I would describe it the plot: the main character, author Juliet Ashton, receives a letter from a man on the island of Guernsey about a book, and as they correspond, he starts to talk about the German Occupation and Juliet is enthralled.
Where Come From Away is a romance and N or M? is a mystery, the best way to describe Guernsey is coming-together historical fiction. That’s vague, but there are so many different elements - family, love, change, power, the list goes on - in this novel, that it’s impossible to capture all of them in a more specific phrase or genre name.
But among all of these elements, the most prominent one is family. Just like Grace had to give up her brothers to the war effort in Come From Away, Elizabeth McKenna had to give up her husband. Furthermore, the novel details how all of the children were sent to Britain proper, as the Germans weren’t as much of a threat to the mainland as they were to the island of Guernsey, and thus many parents had to give up their children.
The character of Elizabeth McKenna - arguably the next most important character after Juliet Ashton - draws parallels still, however, to N or M?. Spoiler Alert: the reader never actually gets a letter to or from Elizabeth, as she is dead. She is sent to a concentration camp for hiding and taking care of a weak Polish slave laborer who worked on the island. But, the accusations made both to her and about her - the occupying Nazis called her a traitor, her fellow islanders called her a danger - are very similar to the ones made by Tommy and Tuppence Beresford as to who the German spy is at Sans Souci. Suspicions arose and plans were made to catch Elizabeth red-handed, very similar to the arrangements the Beresfords made to trap and unmask the German.
Whenever I told anyone the books I was reading for my senior project, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was the one that always struck a chord. I’d hear “Oh, that’s a good one!” or “I loved that movie!” Although I haven’t seen the movie, if it’s anything like the book - and unless it was horribly directed - then I would have to agree. It’s a story of love and loss, but also the power of coming together and of books. It has a unique structure and many intertwining plotlines, but Come From Away and N or M? still share similarities with it. World War II is the common thread between these three novels, as different as they are, and their distinct portrayals of the war made them all the more enjoyable to compare and contrast.
Well, two weeks later: countless World War II knowledge amassed, a blog post written, and a senior project completed.
I’ve had a lot of fun doing this. As much as I would’ve loved just reading for two weeks, what’s the point in learning if you can’t share it? Writing this allowed me to flesh out and delve into my own thoughts about the novels: the similarities between Elizabeth McKenna and Grace, the opposing portrayals of Germans between N or M? and Come From Away, and looking at World War II in varying literary perspectives.
World War II historical fiction, as I mentioned earlier, is one of the three specific genres I indulge in. And you can bet I have so many other books like Come From Away, N or M?, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society on my to-read list. If you want suggestions, The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles and The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris are very highly acclaimed; I look forward to reading those.
As much as I love my psychological thrillers and my medical resident stories, I doubt I could’ve gotten as much out of this project if I had chosen one of those genres. Over the past two weeks, I’ve learned about everything from the types of trees deep in the Canadian wilderness (pine) to what to do when going on a super-secret spy mission (always let at least three people know your whereabouts). The three novels I read I really enjoyed, as they not only expanded my knowledge of World War II, but also that of the human capacity for love (Come From Away), the importance of resilience (N or M?), and, most importantly for me, the power of books (Guernsey). And just like all of the people in Guernsey’s famous literary society, that’s a power I intend to keep harnessing my whole life.
