I am encountering my own silence--I'm not sure what to say about A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War and a Ruined House in France. From
the description of the book, I was excited to read it. I very much
enjoy memoirs and am very interested in Jewish history and the
Holocaust. This book however fell far short of my expectations.
The
book is authored by Miranda Richmond Mouillot and tells the story of
her grandparents, who escaped France during its Nazi invasion in World
War II. For her entire life, her grandparents were divorced and each
would not speak of the other. Miranda attempts to piece together their
tale, desiring to find out what happened to make them hate each other
and wondering if they were ever in love at all. She decides that perhaps
this house is the key to the missing pieces of their lives. Miranda
goes to France to take up residence in the house and to research her
family history. The only truly interesting parts of the book take place
there in France: her grandfather's decline of dementia and Miranda's own
love story when she meets a local Frenchman.
Even as I type
this, the premise is good, but the book itself is just strange. The
characters were very odd and hard to love. I really couldn't relate to
them at all. If this book had been a library book, I would never have
finished it. I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange
for this review.
