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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

Unlikely Neighbours: The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook

30/11/2014

15 Comments

 
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We might be marking the centenary of start of the First World War this year, but here on Annecdotal there’s been an unexpected focus on the Second. From Louise Walters’s Polish pilots and land girls to Elizabeth Buchan’s code breakers and Danish resistance workers, from Audrey Magee’s Nazi marriage of convenience to Richard Flanagan’s Japanese prisoners of war, and forward in time to Peter Matthiessen’s Holocaust Memorial, we’ve viewed it from a range of angles but hadn’t, until now, considered the dynamics of the occupying powers overseeing the de-nazification process of a defeated Germany in the years immediately following the war. Step forward Rhidian Brook and his cast of characters strutting the rubble-strewn stage of a bombed-out Hamburg in 1946: Colonel Lewis Morgan, trying to bring compassion to the reconstruction of the city of shattered buildings and broken spirits; his grieving wife, Rachael, with mixed feelings about being reunited with her husband, blaming him for the death of their eldest son; Edmund, their eleven-year-old, whose pre-programmed prejudices cannot withstand his adventurous spirit; and the widower, Herr Lubert, and his teenage daughter, Frieda, whose palatial home they come to share. Add in Ozi, leader of the bunch of feral kids begging cigarettes from the soldiers to swap for bread or other items on the black market of use to the post-war German resistance, and we’re set for powerful drama on both a human and global scale.

If, like me, you’re sceptical about British officers bringing their families to live alongside them in such a destitute city, then rest assured that the set-up was based on the author’s grandfather’s experience. The six-page fragebogen that features strongly in the novel was indeed used throughout the country in an attempt to identify and disempower former Nazis and their associates. What struck me most were the extent of the city’s desolation and the complexity of the Allies’ task in bringing about an entire country’s rehabilitation, and how ill-equipped the military were to carry it out, given the understandable resentments and conflicting priorities, especially with the Cold War on the horizon. In an attempt to play fair, it looks as if the British applied the type of bureaucracy and hierarchy that had characterised their colonisation of other countries generations before.

My only slight criticism of this novel applies to the cover of the paperback version I read: although the woman in the picture is lovely, she doesn’t suggest the political shenanigans which was the main pleasure for me. Also, although the novel was not especially short and the ending was satisfying, I would have liked it to have been longer simply to give me more time to get my head round an aftermath I feel I ought to know more about.

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Thanks to Penguin books for my review copy. If you’re interested in this period of history and/or how human factors impinge on how the world is run, this might be one for you. Alternatively, you might find something to suit you among the seven other novels I’ve reviewed this month.

The anomaly of the British and German family sharing a home in post-war Hamburg leads me into Charli Mills’ latest flash fiction challenge: to write a 99-word story using two objects, people or ideas that don’t go together. Rather than focusing on the complexities of cross-cultural relationships, I thought I’d build my flash around two objects from the novel. I was very tempted by the suitcase Ozi drags around with him, but I didn’t want to risk spoiling the surprise for potential readers of discovering what’s inside. Instead, I’ve borrowed cigarettes and questionnaires, linked it with my non-NaNo WIP on the subject of psychiatric hospital closure (delighted to say I’ve passed my 30,000 word target, with a few hours of November still to go) and, because it’s very loosely based on my real-life experience, almost qualified for Lisa Reiter’s current Bite-Sized Memoir prompt on interviews. Not sure how much sense it will make out of context, but here goes:

“Does your home have more rooms than people?”

Matty stared as if I were the crazy one.

I ticked the “no” box and moved on. “Can you make a meal any time you choose?”

Matty frowned. “May I see?”

I passed the questionnaire across. How to explain our duty, not only to ensure a better quality of life in the community, but to prove it?

Matty dragged on her cigarette. She raised a corner of the printed sheet to meet the glowing tip.

I would’ve scored that as another “no”, had she not reduced the questionnaire to black powder.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
15 Comments
Charli Mills
30/11/2014 07:30:06 pm

You pulled off and quite well! The book is of a period in history I do not know. Sounds intriguing. We hyper-focus on certain issues and forget others. Love the flash! Such subtle action speaking volumes. Hope this last day of November finds you wrapping up what you had set out to do!

Reply
Annecdotist
2/12/2014 10:34:09 am

Thank you Charli, it's interesting, isn't it how we think we know about subjects until we discover there's a whole other angle – a bit like your Rock Creek project.
Yes, I did get a few more words down before the month ended but still a long way to go before I have a first draft. Nevertheless, it was faster writing than I usually manage, so I've got a blog post brewing on that.

Reply
geoff link
30/11/2014 10:03:16 pm

Marvellous review and the perfect book for me. I've bought it for the plane journey home! As for the flash, excellent. The disquiet of the questioner against the contempt of the interviewee. Perfectly captured.

Reply
Annecdotist
2/12/2014 10:35:57 am

Thank you, Geoff, I'm delighted I have prompted your homebound reading. I hope it's not too serious after all your wonderful travels. Do come back and let me know what you think of it.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
1/12/2014 03:47:07 am

This does sound like an interesting and important book, Anne. As it is for you, the setting is unfamiliar territory for me; and I am a bit ashamed to say that I was unaware of this part of our history. I found the fragebogen fascinating and am pleased that you linked to it.
You mentioned that you found the cover of the paperback inadequate. I wonder what you would have chosen for the cover, and why this particular cover was chosen.
I am very impressed that you have been able to make three connections in this one piece of writing - linking to your NaNoWriMo (Wow - 30,000 words is an impressive achievement), a memoir, and a flash piece. Well done, Anne. I enjoyed reading the review and your flash. I love Matty's response to the survey. It is an appropriate response to many! :)

Reply
Annecdotist
2/12/2014 10:44:24 am

I was fascinated by the questionnaire as, with my background in psychology, I can totally identify with that attempt to formalise and control the uncontrollable. And we now know that so many Nazis slipped through the net too comfortable lives in South America.
Good question about the cover – I think perhaps the fragebogen itself might have been interesting, or something depicting the city's ruins – but I'm no expert on such matters (although I am a bit more curious about such things at the moment thinking about what the publisher might come up with for my own cover).
and I did enjoy linking the three themes of the novel, my WIP and the various challenges. I'm pleased I met my own 30,000 word target, but it's not as impressive as Charli's 50,000

Reply
Norah Colvin link
4/12/2014 04:19:30 am

I look forward to seeing your cover too! It must be very exciting, waiting and wondering; but the waiting probably seems so long!
You can't compare your word count to Charli's. Each of us has our own path to follow in our own time. Both of you are extremely impressive! As Charli said, goals are there to mark progress, and just think of the progress you have made! :)

Annecdotist
8/12/2014 09:02:57 am

Actually, I don't mind the wait too much as long as things go according to the planned schedule. I think I need quite a few months to get used to the idea of it finally being out in the world.
As for my 30,000 words, I AM satisfied with my own achievement as I met the target I set myself and I knew the 50,000 would be unreasonable. But there's no denying Charli, and thousands of others have done an extra 66%!!

Lisa Reiter link
2/12/2014 11:52:52 am

Wonderful review. I'm only sorry I'm so late getting here, trapped bat-like by my urges to hang upside down with a bad back!
A super flash bite there. Love the atmosphere you create with it and the wonderful end!
Like me you may also remember some of those personalty questionnaire items that finally went when people started having the nouse to refuse to answer them! One statement on 16PF (I think) was "I like the feel of a handmade gun" or words to that effect contrasting with something of a sexual nature - choose one. Hmmmm. Apparently statistically reliable too! You may have used it in a clinical setting! (I chose the gun..)
Lisa xx

Reply
Annecdotist
4/12/2014 03:17:41 am

Thanks, Lisa, and so sorry about your writer's back – back pain is such a pain as it impacts on everything, so do appreciate you stealing yourself to comment here.
Well I have mixed feelings about the 16PF – yes many of those questions don't have a lot of face validity but, as you know, it's one of the best researched personality questionnaires. I never had much use for it clinically but we did all get a chance to complete our profiles for some management training. I dug out my copy recently after Charli raised it in one of her posts and reassessed myself. I found it really interesting that, ten years on from the original, I'd moved even closer to the "introverted" pole, which coincided with my expectations.
I've come across a lot of interest among writers in the notion of introversion – extraversion and, although there's still some misapprehensions around that introverts are necessarily shy, I think it's quite helpful in reminding us of the need for time alone.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
4/12/2014 04:22:23 am

That 16PF sounds to be an interesting read! :)

Reply
sarah link
4/12/2014 07:43:46 pm

It does!

Annecdotist
8/12/2014 08:57:23 am

Oh it is, Norah and Sarah. AKA the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in its more recent incarnation.

sarah link
4/12/2014 07:43:21 pm

This book sounds absolutely fascinating. Of course, I've thought about what had to be done directly after the war but a book from such a personal perspective would be interesting to read. I think this is going to have to be a holiday gift. I'll let you know. I'm curious to see what Geoff thinks of this, too.

Great flash, as I've already said on Charli's site but hadn't commented here. :-)

Reply
Annecdotist
8/12/2014 09:04:46 am

Well, Sarah, you're a step ahead of me in having thought about it! I'd be interested to know what you think should you read it.

Reply



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