The gathering storm

Recently I've read a couple of novels set during what Winston Churchill called the gathering storm in England--1939, with Hitler marching across Europe and Neville Chamberlain believing that appeasement would work. Give them Sudentenland, and they'll leave England alone, a policy which Churchill loudly denounced. The first novel, Mr. Churchill's Secretary, by Susan Elia MacNeal, opened my eyes to the situation in England. With the German threat hanging over the country, the IRA was determined to do the German's work for them--bring England to its knees by bombing railroad stations and the like. Their intricate plots were completely separate from Germany and Hitler. And there was great resentment of the US for not entering the fray.This novel is basically a cozy mystery and while I enjoyed the plot, I was much more interested in the historical background, which did include blitzes and quite a few scenes with Churchill. One thread is the limited opportunities for women--Maggie Hope graduated at the top of her class from a prestigious American women's university and is as well trained as England's sharpest intelligence minds, but she is only qualified to be a typist. By a fluke, she becomes the one to take Churchill's dictation and eventually has an opportunity to use her considerable intelligence skills.
The second book, which I just finished, is more of a puzzle. It's Francine Matthews' Jack 1939, set a bit earlier in 1939, before Germany took Poland and began bombing London. Jack is twenty-two-year-old JFK suffering from a severe but undiagnosed illness (probably the Bright's disease later diagnosed). He goes to England, where Joe Kennedy is America's ambassador, to wander Europe doing research for his senior thesis at Harvard, using a diplomatic passport.
This is a suspene thriller in every sense of the term. We know the hero--Jack, who is is sick all the time, often feverish, unable to hold food down, medicating himself, thin and frail. We know the heroine if there is one--Diana Playfair (I looked on Google and she doesn't seem to be a historical character). We know the villains--Reinhard Heydrich, the obbergruppenfuhrer, chief of Hitler's main security office and a thoroughly merciless man (historical figure) along with Hans Obst (apparently fictional), an equally merciless killer skiled with a knife. And we know the prize--an address book listing those who donated to the Sisters of Clemency, a charity which funneled funds to aid the Nazis in defeating Roosevelt in the American election--a list which includes Joe Kennedy. (Complicated enough for you?) Most of the above is historical but what bothered me in this novel was sorting the historical from the fictional, some of which seems improbable. Jack skitters across Europe, Obst at his heels, passing through checkpoints and closed borders and escaping death by a hair's breadth. Suspense at its best but, to me, bothersome. Jack does go from wanting to get the address book to save the famly reputation to wanting to get it for the cause of America--a touch of Camelot to come?
Joe Kennedy is as you would expect--authoritarian, dictatorial, self-centered. Rose, whom I always greatly admired, comes across as less admirable--a social-climbing, self-centered, self-indulgent woman who is distant from her children, even when Jack may be dying. Jack is not much of a surprise--intelligent, foolhardy, an eye for the skirts, enjoying a good drink. But then, he expected to die at any time anyway--why not in an adventure rather than a hospital bed? It's hard to give up Camelot.
But these books have piqued my interest in the pre-WWII years, and I want to read more.

Yoga and writing

Yesterday I woke up in a funk. The prospect of lunch with one good friend and supper with two others didn't jolt me out of my blues. It took me a while--and a yoga session--to figure out what was bothering me. The novel I'm working on wasn't going well; in fact it wasn't going. I'd been reading a wonderful mystery mentioned in a previous blog--Mr. Churchill's Secretary. I got so thoroughly engrossed in it that it's been hard for me to start another novel, though my iPad is loaded with two new ones by authors whose work I usually enjoy. What set Mr. Churchill's Secretary apart was partly the significance of the backdrop--Hitler's march across Europe, the Luftwaffe bombings of London. But more than that, it was the unexpected. No one was who you thought they were, and good guys turned out to be villains, and those you had pegged as villains were good guys--or at least had a soft streak. My novel, on the other hand, was predictable--at least in my mind.
I figured all this out while stretching and pushing and doing all those yoga things--and counting to ten seconds for many poses. But I truly went back to work with renewed enthusiasm and have since written about 3500 words--okay, I know some authors write ten hours and 10,000 words a day--not me. But I finally feel that I'm headed in a better direction, and that's exciting.
I have enjoyed my social life--lunch with Melinda who, apart from having been my favorite employee at TCU Press, remains a good friend now that I'm not at the press; supper with Carol and Kathie, two book cronies I've known for years. We share each others triumphs, tragedies, and small concerns. Today I had lunch with several members of a book group I've spoken to three times--discovered one of them is a "field editor" for a cooking magazine--right up my alley, and I may have more to say about her later. But she gave me sample copies of Taste of Home and I had fun learing through them this afternoon. My favorite find: strawberries stuffied with a mix of cream cheese and blue cheese, and topped with a bit of balsamic vinaigrette (I'd leave out the chopped pecans). Would that be salad or dessert? It was a real boost to my ego to hear these ladies say again how much they liked my books, and one had read one of my historical novels and ordered another.
An aside; we deliberatel went to the Frank Kent Honda dealership for lunch. Good friend David Rotman who used to own Cafe Aspen now works there, and they asked him to spiff up their food service for customers and employees. He's brought some of the old Aspen recipes, and you can have a great lunch in the attractive chrome setting of a new car dealership. David wasn't there today, but we had a good lunch and good time. One salesman told us lunch was free if we bought a car; he told one of the other ladies if she paid his price for lunch, she'd get a free car.
Tonight was neighbors' night at the Old Neighborhood Grill and I had my meatloaf fix--the cashier looks at me and asks, "The usual?" When I nod, she pours a generous glass of Kendall Jackson chardonnay and orders up a piece of meat loaf and a side of green beans. I don't know--is it good to be that predictable? As we were leaving, one neighbor asked, "Are you going home to write?" I said I was, and she said, "Good. I need another mystery to read."
So all in all, writing is looking pretty good to me--and when I reread what I had done on that novel, it really wasn't all that bad. I think I'll run it by my mentor/beta reader/whatever next week and maybe get a critique partner through Sisters in Crime's Guppy program. Funk gone at least for now. Oh, and I've done my yoga faithfully. I think it helps both mind and body--and that funky right hip that's been bothering me.

Mr. Churchill's decision--and ours

I"m reading a book that fascinates me--Mr. Churchill's Secretary, by Susan Elia MacNeal. I'm fascinated not only because it has good mystery elements but mostly because of the history I'm learning. The setting is London in 1939, with war anticipation running high as Hitler marched across Europe. I was one year old, so I obviously didn't know, but in school I learned basically that WWII started with Pearl Harbor. Now I know there was so much more going on. Hitler devastated Europe, ending with France. Britain knew he would turn his attention there and lived in dreadful anticipation of the Luftwaffe attacks. London was rife with resentment that the United States had not joined in, and the IRA was doing its best to bring down England at this most vulnerable time--bombings, collusion with the Nazis, all kinds of plots. Britain faced treason from within and military force from without. Winston Churchill, who called for resisting the enemy at all costs, was not particularly a popular figure. Many favored appeasement, but Churchill held fast to his conviction that Britain must not succumb.
The central figure, as the title implies, is Mr. Churchill's secretary--actually she's a mathematician, trained at Wellesley, but women were not allowed such jobs, so she takes dictation. And at one point, Church says to her, "Either we move forward into a world of sunlight or sink into the abyss of a new dark age."
To me, that's where America stands right now. It's not overtly a political choice, it's a moral one--though ultimately of course it comes down to politics. But are we going to become a nation divided by class, with little or no opportunity for few but the rich? A nation divided by gender, race, sexual preference? A nation whose judgment and laws are heavily influenced by one set of religious principles that, among other things, deny women a seat at the table?
Or are we going to conitnue to move forward to be a nation where every person,regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual preference, has an equal chance? A nation where all faiths and all races are respected? A nation that recognizes the worth of the individual, be he or she factory worker or millionaire?
Granted our forefathers didn't foresee racial equality, gender equality--we have, to our credit, "come a long way, baby!" But those founding fathers were quite clear about separation of church and state, having come from the oppression of many religions in Europe. And Thomas Jefferson, among others, warned of the dangers when government falls into the hands of the privileged and elite.
This November we have that clear choice. It's not a choice of Republican or Democrat--it's a choice of moral principles. I know where I stand. How about you?