The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: Those Who Save Us

Warning: this review contains some spoilers.

Many books have been written about World War II and the Holocaust. I, for one, didn’t think there was anything new anybody could say on this subject. But apparently, I was wrong. Jenna Blum had lots to say.

Those Who Save Us is a novel that offers a different perspective of the war. It’s not a novel about the battlefield and the soldiers who fought and perished there, or the people who got sent to concentration camps to die. This novel focuses on the Germans who helped the Jews—or didn’t—and the price they had to pay for their actions. It’s not a novel of moral absolutes; it’s one filled with grays.

The story is told in two timelines by two women: Anna in the early 40s, a baker’s apprentice who has a relationship with a Jewish doctor that leaves her pregnant in the midst of an antisemitic world; and her daughter Trudy, a history professor in the 90s who grows up in Minnesota trying to understand who she is and how to muffle the shame of what her German ancestors did.

As Trudy embarks on a series of interviews to understand the German perspective during the war–a cleansing of sorts–her mother Anna locks herself in silence and baking. While Anna tries to leave the past behind, Trudy is determined to uncover it and understand it, creating increasing friction with her mother. But Anna’s past unfolds in front of our eyes with painful detail. In her youth, we see her as a woman whose initial naïveté and playfulness transforms into courage and bitterness. She often has to do things she doesn’t want to do, things that will haunt her for the rest of her life, but we also see her generous spirit and her tenacity as she puts herself in danger to help others. This mixture of guilt, impotence and the drive to survive makes her a fascinating character.

Blum does a good job at introducing the romance between Anna and the Jewish doctor, but I can’t say she’s equally convincing in a romance that flourishes later on. The novel seems to sag a little at times (particularly during the years where Anna has a relationship with an SS officer) and has a few scenes of what some may consider gratuitous sex. But overall, the story flows well, and Trudy’s interviews are dynamic and interesting.

With a literary style that is sometimes frustrating (Blum chooses to do without quotation marks during her dialogues) but most often satisfying for the richness in language and the vivid descriptions and imagery, Blum shows us a different, a very human face of the war. Sure, there is a fair share of one-dimensional villains and victims thrown in the mix, but there are many characters in-between. And those are the ones who kept me reading.

I recommend this novel to those who have sometimes been disappointed with books about the Holocaust because of how predictable and/or repetitive they seem, and want to explore a different perspective. But this novel is not for everyone. There are a few violent scenes toward women and children. The subject is one that elicits a lot of emotion, pain and anger, and as such, it can feel daunting and depressing to some readers. It is in no way a light read. However, sometimes these sad stories are the ones that touch audiences the most. The resolution—and the story as a whole—definitely does that.

Check out these other Cephalopod Coffeehouse reviews!

1.	The Armchair Squid	2.	Counterintuitivity
3.	Subliminal Coffee	4.	Scouring Monk
5.	A ARTE DE NEWTON AVELINO	6.	The Random Book Review
7.	StrangePegs -- The Ocean at The End of the Lane	8.	Ed & Reub
9.	What's Up, MOCK?	10.	My Creatively Random Life
11.	Jim Devitt	12.	Hungry Enough to Eat Six!
13.	Bird's Nest	14.	Divine Secrets of the Writing Sisterhood
15.	Words Incorporated	16.	Spill Beans
17.	M.J. Fifield	18.	Servitor Ludi

In the End, There's Always Hope

She's running through the woods. Limbs and thorny branches grab at her like little children at play, only these grasping hands rip her thin dress. Her feet, pounding across the dirt, try to find a place, anyplace, to hide. Even though she doesn't see him, her pursuer is close behind. She can smell him, rich and oily like the polish he uses to shine his boots to a blinding glare. The stream looms before her, small, but big enough to lose any trace of who she is. As soon as she steps into that stream, her hope is to come out beyond his grasp, beyond the horrific life she once knew and never loved...

Back in 2005, my husband and I experienced a pretty horrific car accident. Along with a lot of pain, weeks in the hospital, months away from our home, and years of surgeries, physical therapy, and painful recovery came a lot of pain killers accompanied by a certain dream that kept replaying in my sleep.

Her name is Hope. The girl I introduced to you, here, in the beginning. And for months after the accident I couldn't get her out of my mind. So, I asked my husband if he thought it would be weird if I sat down (because basically that's all I could do since my leg was shattered) and wrote her story. He said it wasn't weird at all. Bless that sexy man for not thinking I was going crazy!

With the aid of a healthy dose of Kelly Clarkson at the time (yeah, I know), I wrote my first novel. Now, I'd tried my hand at writing before. You know, the obligatory essays in college, the endless French papers about French authors, a final thesis for grad school, even my first attempts when I was in junior high and high school. The thing of it is that I've always had an active imagination. And I've always loved history. It came as no surprise to me that I chose Historical Fiction (no, I don't mean Historical Romance, because there is a difference) as my favorite genre in which to write.

I took Hope's story, along with some badly written short stories, and tried my hand at contests. The short stories never went anywhere, but, BINGO! Hope's story started hitting it in contests. I thought I had something good going on.

Then I got my first rejection.

The agent thought the story would work better for a YA agent. What?! This was not a YA novel (no offense to the YA authors out there), but hard-hitting literary fiction!

Okay, so I guess I needed to educate myself.

And that's exactly what I did. I took classes on how to construct a novel, what elements to look for that really pull the reader in, and how to know what genre I was even writing. I attended conferences, mainly in hopes of catching the right agent's eye, but also gleaning a thing or two about how this whole writing thing worked. I bought a few books on how to write a good book (not too many, because like with historical research, too much just bogs down your brain with unneeded information) and I learned how to deconstruct my own manuscripts and how to look at my characters with every step they took.

In the end, I eventually set Hope's story aside. My feedback from agents and contest critiques was inconsistent. I loved Hope, I loved her world, but I had to shelve her for the time being. And perhaps that was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. I had poured so much of my own frustrations and pain into this character, but I wondered if she would ever go anywhere, and much to my own dismay, I thought the same of myself and this thing called writing.

But then I picked myself up and went to work on the next novel. At first I didn't love that main character as much as Hope. She didn't come saddled with as much baggage as Hope. Her life was too prissy and I began to wonder if I'd ever really like this new character.

But you know what? I realized I had to find that place where I could connect with my new MC. I visited a small town in the Midwest that eventually became the backdrop for my story. I saw her in the house that at first would feel strange and unwelcoming, but would soon become a hub of revealing secrets and open arms. I stood under an elm tree in the cemetery, envisioning a key moment in her story, seeing her struggle and at the same time seeing her fate. I walked Main Street, spoke with the local minister and a woman who worked in a church that is so crucial to my story and brings everything to a fatal head. In the end, I found out who this character was.

And after that, I loved working with her story.

I also knew I had a strong novel. I began the querying process. I'd get a few requests, send them out, get replies that said something needed to be fixed, and then I'd move forward again. It wasn't a constant path of every day querying, but rather done in spurts. Rejection can be a little overwhelming in the beginning, especially when it feels like you're just one of many receiving the same form rejection. You begin wondering if anyone is even reading the stupid query letter! So it's good to pace yourself.

By the beginning of this year, I decided I needed to take some time off, do a little spiritual soul-searching, and see if what I was doing was even the right path for me. After taking a month to rework parts of my novel, I decided I'd go with one round, maybe two, of querying and then I'd shelve this book as well. In March I sent out about a dozen queries and within a week I got five requests for fulls. I'd never had that many agents reply that fast and all at one time, so I was optimistic, but also very very cautious.

Okay, so let's cut to the chase, shall we. I'd like to announce that I've recently signed with Liza Fleissig of the Liza Royce Agency and I'm very excited about the next step! Getting published is a long road and, as you can see, I've been at it for a few years, but I'm prepared to keep going until I get there. From the time I started querying this novel to the time I signed, it took me about a year and a half to find representation. In the meantime, I didn't sit at home chewing my nails and watching my email inbox. Instead I kept working, writing two more novels in hopes that at least one of them sometime soon would get picked up.

Do I regret setting Hope's story aside? Sometimes, yes, but I know when it's time to move on. I enjoy going back to her story and thinking about the sequels I want to write (hers is the only story I've written where there will one day be sequels). It's sad to finish a novel, knowing you're finished with those characters, but with Hope I can always wander back to her world.

So, yeah, even when things seem bleak or overwhelming or just plain uncertain, I always have hope to go back to. Keep that in mind for yourself if you're struggling through this writing thing!

Redemptive Novels

I picked up a book from the library recently, and had just started reading it when my husband asked what it was about. I turned to the inside-jacket blurb and began reading aloud. Then I got to this line:

"It is a memorable, heartbreaking, and ultimately redemptive novel about finding sustenance and friendship in the most surprising places..."

And my husband rolled his eyes. "Redemptive!" he said. "How can a book be redemptive?" He went on to say that he's tired of hearing this word used to describe novels: not only is it overdone, it's simply the wrong word.

First, hubby is correct that this word is being overused to describe books now: once he pointed it out to me, I started seeing it everywhere: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, The Language of Flowers, The Snow Child, The Burgess Boys, The Good House. All these are new and popular novels, all described as "redemptive." I've read most of them, and what these books actually have in common is they feature sad-sack characters who are better off by the end. They're feel-good books.

So why aren't the books described that way? Why use that specific word? "Redemption" means "salvation" or "atonement," at least when it's not being used in the fiscal sense. Either you are redeeming yourself, by righting a wrong, or someone is redeeming you—and I think only deities are allowed to do that. So the word has a religious flavor. And in that sense, it is pretty weird to apply it to a book: Does the book erase sin from the reader's heart? That's quite a job, for a book! Even the Bible doesn't claim to do that, at least not merely by the reading of it.

"I think they mean the novels are about redemption," I said to my husband.

"That's doesn't make sense, though," he responded. "If a novel is about water, you don't describe the novel as wet."

I hadn't thought about it that way before. But it's true: If a book was about abuse, you wouldn't call it abusive. If a book was about adoption, you wouldn't call it adoptive. So what is behind this use of "redemptive?" Are people hoping these books will redeem them, somehow? As if, by being shown someone else's redemption, we can find our own? Or is there something else behind the sudden uptick in this book-blurb adjective?