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Description edit
From the acclaimed writer Peter Ho Davies comes an engrossing wartime love story set in the stunning landscape of North Wales during the final, harrowing months of World War II. Young Esther Evans has lived her whole life within the confines of her remote mountain village. The daughter of a... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
Esther, a WWII-era Welsh barmaid, finds her father—a fiercely nationalistic, anti-English shepherd—provincial; she daydreams that she'll elope to London with her secret sweetheart, an English soldier. In short order, Esther is raped by her boyfriend, and her Welsh village is turned into a... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
Characters/People edit
- Esther: WWII-era Welsh barmaid and farmer's daughter, age 17
- Karsten: German POW
- Rotheram: Investigating officer; half-Jewish former German refugee now a member of the British military
- Jim: Adolescent evacuée from Liverpool, living on Esther's farm
- Schiller: Former comrade and officer of Karsten's, now a fellow POW
- Rhys: A young man who grew up with Esther and proposed marriage to her but was refused; serving in the British Armed Forces.
- Hess: Real-life Nazi officer very close to Hitler; a POW being held in Wales when the action in the book takes place
- Arthur: Esther's father; farmer/shepherd and quarry worker
- Mary: The female half of a radio comedy team; a regular in Esther's bar
- Colin: British soldier assigned to help build the POW camp in Wales
- Harry: The male half of a radio comedy team; a regular in Esther's bar
- Jack: Owner of the bar where Esther works
- Heino: Underage comrade of Karsten's and fellow POW
- Mrs Roberts: Esther's former English teacher and mother of Rhys; also postmistress
- Hawkins: Rotheram's Commanding Officer
- Eric: A former evacuee who had previously lived on Esther's farm and was a former love interest of hers
- Parry: Constable in the Welsh village where Esther lives
- Redgrave: Add a description of this character.
- Jerry: Slang term for a German soldier
- Francoise: French prostitute and friend of Karsten's
- Heil Hitler: Salute in praise of Hitler frequently used by Nazis and their supporters
- Willi: Young comrade of Karsten's before their surrender
- Baker
- Cohn
- George
- Mott: One of the sheep-herding dogs on Esther's farm
- Cilgwyn: Esther's farm
- Steiner: Briefly a fellow POW of Karsten's when he was held at Dover
- Tommy: Slang term for a British soldier
- Tony
- Sid
- Mervyn: Local man in Esther's village; sometime-rival of her father
Quotes edit
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“Better, he thinks, that you should hate me than feel forgiven.”
Rotheram, in reference to his CO, Hawkins
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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however cynefin was preserved, it was from mother to daughter.
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mostly he speaks of cynefin with a kind of reverence, with pride even—not least, as he's told her several times, because the English don't have a word for it. As if it's an essentially Welsh quality.
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We couldn't believe such a thing was possible, and that's how we could do it.'
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Sometimes it feels like they're all linked somehow, the losses, like a chain, one death coupled to the next, and the next, whichever side they're on.'
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The Jews, he knew, had no homeland, yearned for one, and yet as much as he understood it to be a source of their victimization, it seemed at once such pure freedom to be without a country.
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That's the power of film, to draw a line between those who act and those who watch.'
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'So, your bloody English, see here,' Arthur concludes, 'they call us welshers, cheaters, deceivers, make like the very word 'Welsh' means to lie, to betray, when all along they was the ones, with their vicious rule, made our boys act like that.'
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She's been working here for almost three months now, since she turned seventeen,
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but she's never once served him. He sticks to the public bar, the Welsh-speaking half of the pub, while she, with her proper schoolroom English, works in the lounge serving the soldiers, locals like the constable who mix with them, and the motley assortment of other new arrivals. Not that her father's English, his spoken English at least, is so bad for all his thick accent; it's just beneath his dignity to use it.
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This corner of North Wales feels such a long way from the center of life, from London or Liverpool or, heavens, America. But nationalism, she senses, is a way of putting it back in the center, of saying that what's here is important enough. And this really is what Esther wants, what she dimly suspects they all want. To be important, to be the center of attention.
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First Sentence edit
Outside, the technicolor sunset is giving was to the silvery sweep of searchlights over distant Cardiff as a hand tugs the blackout curtain across the sky.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Peter Ho Davies (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 2007
ISBN: 0618007008
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 2007
ISBN: 0618007008
Page Count: 338
Awards edit
- Man Booker Prize (Finalist, 2007, Longlist)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 823.914
Subjects edit
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