Book Review: Lilac Girls (three lives intersect, WW2)

 Lilac Girls by Martha Kelly (Ballantine, $17.00, 2017, 502pp PB) 

Where was I when this book came out in 2017? Why did I miss all the hullabaloo about this fantastic story of World War II? 

Author Martha Kelly has a habit of ending chapters on cliffhangers. . . . and with three major characters in three different geographical areas, I had to keep reading.

The Title. . . .

I am always cognizant of titles - what they mean and why they were chosen. Lilacs do appear twice in this book but I might have selected something different.

And the front cover illustration of three women walking away, arm in arm. How do our three women's lives intersect, I kept wondering.

I almost posted a preliminary review yesterday when I was about halfway through the book but then found some time and finished it (and it's a long book). And glad I was to read the author's note: Lilac Girls is based on true events which is amorphous, misleading, contradictory at best and doesn't usually tell me anything but the author's note does help tremendously.

Sisters and Friends and Family and the War and a Little Bit of Love

It is hard yet realistic to bounce from a wealthy socialite in New York City to a young woman in occupied Poland and a woman doctor in occupying Germany who believes wholeheartedly in the Reich. Reminds me of the conflicts in recent decades where the wars have been fought far from home and we hardly were affected at all. 

The first woman has a heart of gold and volunteers for the French war effort, seeking funds from the well-off for French orphans. The latter is hindered by her gender in a male-dominated occupation so when she sees an ad for a doctor in a re-education camp for women, she takes it (and finds herself in Ravensbruck!) And the other is a fighter and a supporter of others until she has a difficult time after the war.

We have one of them falling in love with a married man. We empathize with the war wounds that continue to plague another, well after the fighting stops. We follow the women in a concentration camp and really feel we are experiencing daily life there with its acts of generosity and betrayal.

Saga

Most sagas are historical novels about several generations of one family or two. This is a saga but horizontal not vertical in that it takes the reader through only a few years but focuses on three young women in three countries during World War II.

And the sage continues well beyond D-Day.

And, oh My!

Lilac Girls is part of a trilogy, the first book, Lost Roses,

 

also based on true events introduces us to the previous generation and World War I while Sunflower Sisters

begins the trilogy in the Civil War.