“A powerful and compelling story of two families torn apart by evil”
- Book: Flight Of The Shearwater
- Location: Europe
- Author: Alan Jones
Part Two of a trilogy of epic proportions, where to be honest, my reviews could never do true justice to the sheer range or depth of the storyline, or the majestic writing within its pages.
As I indicated in my review of Part One, The Gathering Storm, I still really believe that the books work eminently well as stand alone stories, which due to scheduling constraints is how I have needed to treat them, as each is a monster read of some 800+ pages. However, for the true WWII enthusiast, or lover of intricately detailed and nuanced family sagas, I am certain that reading all three books back to back would definitely provide the most satisfying and fulfilling experience.
It would also help in the understanding of this particular instalment and to get the most out of it, if the reader was a keen yachtsman, as the action is quite evenly divided between land and water, and author Alan Jones, has clearly immersed himself in his maritime research, alongside his wartime investigations, so precisely and arrestingly detailed is the narrative. For me personally, a self-confessed landlubber, the many sailing terms, rituals and routines, on their own, wouldn’t have overly inspired me to carefully read each and every word on the page and there just might have been a little ‘speed reading’ going on. However Alan worked his magic and made excellent use of his exuberant writing skills, in weaving this section into the very fabric of the storyline, until it was impossible to read one without the other, without running the risk of feeling ‘short-changed’. Water flows through the veins of the Kastner men in equal quantities as blood, so I often found myself entranced, standing shoulder to shoulder with Franz and Johann, as they plotted and charted their meandering and thoroughly dangerous course, around the waters, channels and coastline harbours of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, towards their final destination, until the ‘armchair traveller’ in me was well and truly sated.
The lives of the German Kastner family, have been intrinsically linked with that of the Jewish Nussbaum family, for three generations, almost to the point where the lines between them being employers and employees, have become blurred enough for them to refer to one another as friends. The Nussbaum’s live in the grounds of the Kastner house, so are never really off duty and can always be relied on in an emergency or crisis. The children of both families have grown up alongside one another and played together, with obvious differences in culture and religion having always been respected and accommodated by both sides. Now, in 1941, with the war across Europe ramping up and Hitler firmly ensconced in his role as German Chancellor, life for both families has reached a crisis point, with the Nussbaum’s fighting for their very existence and the Kastners becoming evermore divided as conscience threatens to overwhelm duty to their new masters for some, whilst for Frau Kastner and the couple’s eldest daughter, Eva, the new order offers a chance for personal advancement and social climbing, if only her husband would cooperate and toe the party line, so that she is no longer ashamed of the person he is becoming.
Coming from an esteemed lineage of soldiers and having excelled in his service to Germany throughout the devastation and human loss of World War I, being highly decorated and rewarded for his efforts, Erich Kastner remains loyal to his country, but is having difficulty in reconciling his ideology with the direction in which Hitler is taking his homeland, in his quest to create the perfect Aryan race. His two sons, Franz and Johann, themselves having already earned high accolades and promotions in the present conflict, are forced to search their hearts, and also find themselves shamed and sickened by the massacres and genocide they are forced to witness in their beloved country, by their fellow countrymen, on their own people. So along with their younger sister, they resolve to assist their father in helping the Nussbaum’s make good their escape, before it is too late.
For their part, the Nussbaum’s also have some heart-wrenching, highly emotional and they accept, maybe fatal decisions to make, knowing that they have probably left it too late to escape from the Reich as a family unit. However, with their quiet and dignified, yet determined stoicism to do what is right, no matter the ultimate personal cost to themselves, Miriam and Yosef accept the lifeline the Kastner’s offer them, in the knowledge that both families will be changed forever, have everything to lose and will never be able to go back to life as it was before.
That is the scene, set in a very small nutshell, from which this chapter in the saga, rises and triumphs, as a supreme tour de force, on its way to what will no doubt be a stunning climax in book #3, the final episode. There were so many layers waiting to be peeled back, to reveal the many controversial and intersecting strands of this gripping, powerfully presented, desperately intense, wonderfully structured and emotionally textured storyline. The sheer volume and quality of the research author Alan Jones has undertaken in preparation for writing the series, truly makes this an important work of societal and cultural, historic and political fiction. The fluent chapters are well signposted and concise enough, despite making every single word count, to provide plenty of natural reading breaks, whilst the tragic story evolves agonisingly slowly, making this an almost diarised account of events over a relatively short time period. There are some profoundly evocative, touching and emotional moments, with both happy and sad causes, which made my heart beat faster and my pulse race, as I just knew that things were never going to end well, no matter how hard I wished and crossed my fingers. Fast forward and there are also a few interjections from an interview with Ruth Nussbaum in the year 2001, as her own reminiscences of the times are also deftly woven into the narrative of the story, which in itself gives away a little of the endgame, although to whom she is giving voice to her memories, remains as yet, unknown.
Disturbing, perceptive, compelling and rich in detail narrative and dialogue, afford a genuine sense of time and place and a great immersive visual depth, as the net closes in on a minority and persecuted race, which is not able to sustain the interminable onslaught of an administration hellbent on its extinction, not only inside Germany itself, but on any foreign soil where the advancing forces of the Reich prevail, making escape from its deadly clutches, almost impossible.
Oh! how Alan made me love to hate Gullich and Meyer, the epitomes of model German Gestapo Officers. I could just tell that it was making them choke to have to cut Erich Kastner so much slack, as he is an officer held in such high esteem, suspecting but being unable to irrefutably prove that he and his sons had a hand in attempting to get the Nussbaum children to safety. I cheered each time Erich managed to get one over on them, in their seemingly futile search, however I grudgingly had to give them ten out of ten for sheer perseverance, by which point it was inevitable that there would be dreadful repercussions for anyone who had duped them.
Alan has created a sprawling cast of core characters, who are growing in stature with each passing chapter, whose voices are becoming ever louder and stronger and who demand to have their story heard by the outside world. That they need to operate clandestinely, often from inside the administration, only hones and sharpens their resolve to make a difference and make every move count. Now that the storyline has taken us outside the borders of the Fatherland, as the war in Europe intensifies and draws more nations into its arena, smaller pockets of resistance are forming, who add their fledgling voices to the call for justice. Complex and emotionally driven, raw and passionate, often fragile and vulnerable; they are nonetheless completely genuine and believable, reliable and authentic, with a stoicism and loyalty born of necessity.
What makes reading such wonderful experience for me, is that with each and every book, I am taken on a unique and individual journey, by some amazing authors, who fire my imagination, stimulate my senses and stir my emotions. For a single author to achieve all that with one book, is surely testament to the sheer quality of the writing and storyline. Surely an important work of cultural and societal fiction, based on and wrapped around, the reality of some well established historical facts, written sympathetically from the heart, with care and deference to the subject.
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