Guest review by Janelle Bailey, retired Literature teacher.

Having enjoyed all of Lauren Fox’s previous novels, one in preparation for meeting and introducing her at the Wisconsin Book Festival a few years back and the other two following that, I was both excited and extremely intrigued when this one came out, but given all that was going on at the moment, I just did not feel up to (another) World War II novel…so did wait a little bit to actually pick it up. I packed it with my spring break to-read stack-in-a-bag. And I am not disappointed at all to have done so.

While fiction, this novel’s impetus lies in the truths discovered in letters that Fox’s great-grandmother had written to Fox’s grandmother…in an old, legibly readable to very few, German script. She explains, “After they [her grandparents] died, I found among their things a little wooden box full of letters written by my great-grandmother, Frieda, to my grandmother, Ilse, dating from 1938-1941. I knew almost immediately, and without being able to read a word, that this treasure I had stumbled upon would be life-changing.” Volumes of work and research and time then went into Fox’s translation work first: she found on campus and then met with a German professor weekly for a year during her graduate studies and with a tape recorder, to have him translate into English for her, letter by letter, those in her great-grandmother’s German script. And when all of that work was complete, she still hadn’t even decided what she would do with all she learned from those written exchanges. She did use it in her master’s thesis. But the way in which it all became, ultimately, the core of this novel’s stories required some more living of her own, the gaining of experience and reflection and this…necessarily more aged perspective for her to decide to use her great-grandmother’s letters, verbatim, and as they are here. 

Personally I feel this should be a front piece to the book rather than at the book’s end, as it lends more valuable depth and layers to Fox’s writing craft and talents…and for the reader, pushing whichever ethos, pathos, or logos layer button required for you to value quality story. This insight gives the reader an opportunity to appreciate more realistically the woven layers of fiction and non-fiction present in the novel, appreciating also the depths and layers of the work done by Fox, its very weaver.

Again, this is a novel, a work of fiction. However, Fox’s own ancestors’ stories do, like the characters’ stories in this book, share settings: in both Fox’s family facts and her fiction, some of the action occurs in the 1930s into early 1940s, and some of this action occurs in Germany and then other of it two generations later and right here in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, specifically. Send For Me moves about and between these two settings, building the stories of Annelise and her parents, and then Annelise’s own family through their development to her granddaughter Clare. These characters, their lives and stories, woven through each of the five sections of the novel. Its layers read much like it feels to actually find a letter or photograph and then unpack its story and weave it back into its “place” in history. 

It does not hurt that this particular reader, I, am also a fan of baked goods and bakeries, warming very much to the early prewar Germany setting of this book, a family-owned bakery in where a young woman named Annelise works with her parents, Klara and Julius. The steady presentation of what is being made or baked, placed into and then ordered from the display cases, creates for this reader a warmth of yeasty aromas and camaraderie in the workplace that, well, work…very well. Additionally this all helps to solidify the “safety” and wholesome community and the feel of it here and in their routines, such that we readers, too, are surprised at the anti-Jewish sentiments rising throughout Germany and eventually moving right in this town and neighborhood as well.

And despite this reader’s lack of need for “romance,” ever, in a book for it to be “good” or an enjoyable read, the romantic elements of this novel are quite satisfying. Relationships were built that did not and/or did stand the test of time, and not all weathered well the challenges of the conflicts that developed between the Jews in Germany and their oppressors. Thus this does not read like a “romance novel” but includes believable elements of the tension of romantic relationships and how those have to be more than that to withstand many of the tests they face.

In the most contemporary setting of the book, taking place two generations after Annelise moves on and into her own married life and then motherhood as well, we meet Annelise’s granddaughter, Clare, in a Midwestern town and navigating her own developing womanhood and self, finding her way while carrying with her all that her parents, her grandparents, have also endured and carried with them. (Here, too, I see Fox herself, caring for her ancestors’ history in the “things” they carried, discovered while cleaning.)

The story is conveyed far more simply than the complexity might suggest of the work and time that went into researching and writing it. But I think this all wise and time well spent to craft a story that does what the very best do: pulls us in to experience something that may be familiar to us or feel similar to things we’ve also carried or brand new and foreign-feeling, but it does not tell us what to think or how to feel. Rather, a book like Send For Me allows us to live in those spaces and places and try on any of those roles for a bit to better understand the lives others may have lived–possibly our very own ancestors in some ways, shape, or form– and allows us to better appreciate both their experiences and our own. 

I have spent much time reminiscing about my own grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents and up both immediate branches of my own family tree. About some of them I know a lot, and/or there are many artifacts, photos, stories passed on through letters/diaries/etc., and about others I know very, very little. But this book reminded me that every one of them had their own story. I wish I could hear them tell it. This book makes me crave that even more…along with needing to bake something yummy as well!

Guest review by Janelle Bailey, retired Literature teacher.

Jonathan Franzen has long been a dependable author for me. I have a number of his books on my shelved have reads as well as a number more in my to-be-read stacks. I do not devour them all at once like I have other authors’ works when I first meet and LOVE them and for a couple of reasons. Franzen’s works are…well, work. Several are of tome-length, and few are upbeat, to say the least, but rather are dives into, as another reading friend put it, the “banality of humanity.” And those are not tomes “for everyone.”

And while this last statement is not true of all Franzen books, it does tend to be the reality of the larger ones—The Corrections, Purity—and that holds true in Crossroads. One has to buck up in ways to dig into another book about Americans who have all sorts of plenty mis-placing their energy in erring up things they could manage much better—parenting, spousing, and more.

I did enjoy the 1970s, Midwestern US setting, and even the “hippie”-ness of the characters. While just a little kid in the 70s myself, I could still identify with and “see” the “older kids” in my neighborhood and at my church, growing up, as the members of Franzen’s “youth group,” Crossroads. And I related as well to how the arrogance and ego of even the best-intentioned people can destroy efforts toward good for all.

While I might argue a few things to be a tad anachronistic, overall Franzen created this community as believable, their faith in the music and story even more than the church and God relate-able, some of their issues and concerns more relevant than others, but overall its addressing beyond faith and religion of topics like parenting, drug abuse, travel, marriage, identity, mental illness, finances, and more to be interesting and thought-provoking. This would be a great book club book, I think, for the discussion that could ensue.

I relish the opportunity to visit about it with some others before finalizing even my own review. Just like most books are better than the movie, many books are better after a good book club discussion…or in lieu of that, a visit with another reader. It is that aspect of reading good to great—heck, even bad!—books with others, having someone with whom to discuss it and who has a different perspective and opinion from one’s own, that really brings my reading of any book to “completion,” even after I’ve written my review.