The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

You know what takes balls? Writing a fluff book about WWII atrocities (Tom Brokaw not included). But somehow, in the novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, authors Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows pull it off.

Guernsey is written entirely in the form of 1946 letters to and from Juliet Ashton, a writer who's become famous by fictionalizing her WWII experiences in London as "Izzy Bickerstaff," a spunky character from a newspaper column. Juliet is looking for material for her next book (ideally more substantial than Izzy), and is getting tired of the book tours that her publisher/editor/longtime friend Sidney keeps sending her on. Mixed into her letters to and from Sidney is a random fan note from a man named Dawsey on Guernsey. Because this is what strangers do--spill their guts in writing to random authors--he begins telling her the story of the ad hoc book club (the titular group) which sprung up in his idyllic seaside village during the very non-idyllic German occupation. Soon his friends and neighbors are also writing her long, detailed letters about their personal lives and literary quirks--until Juliet is so overwhelmed by their charm and pluckitude that she decides to go live among them and scrape together their wartime stories for her next book.

The whole setup is a little contrived, as are most of the plot points (rich man falls desperately in love with Juliet after one quasi-date; publisher Sidney is her faithful friend; Dawsey is sweet and shy and bookish and selfless; which one will she end up with?). But dammit, as much as I wanted to stay askance, the whole thing snuck up on me.

There's a weird thread of darkness running throughout: nearly all the Islanders have horrible stories of deprivation and cruelty by the occupying German soldiers; a key character suffers terribly at the hands of the Nazis; and the village adopts a French Holocaust survivor as a kind of mascot. It's very strange, in contrast to the bright sudsiness of the book's general tone. But the historical details are probably the most compelling part of the novel, so it's easier to forgive the tonal unevenness.

On the whole, it's fast-moving and cute, and worthy of the recommendation that dropped the book in my lap.