Category Archives: Wendy Welch

Events, Dear Boy – –

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Jack only just gets over the line in time  – –

It’s been quite a time over the last few days –

With the bathroom reconstruction over we headed down to South Carolina last Thursday to our friends in Simpsonville for the weekend for me to pre-record fifteen radio shows and for Wendy to get some expert advice for her much more widely heard shows. We always sidetrack to ‘Frugal McDougals’ to stock up on supplies for the months ahead which makes for a longer journey and means driving past Charlotte, which is always a challenge!

But we came home by backroads to Ashville and on up through Johnson City – much more relaxed!

While were gone our good friend Susi checked on our cats and chickens, including rescuing the teenage one from netting we had specifically arranged to keep them off our tomato plants. We were delighted to see she had started a mural in the aforementioned bathroom – she is a terrific artist!

Then on Tuesday morning we were wakened by our two cats screaming at something. Wendy checked under our bed – and there was a strange cat there. We have no idea how it got in the house!

Finally – yesterday we at last found where one of our chickens was laying her eggs, but then realized she’d gone broody and insisted on sitting on them. We may have to get her a small chick – – –

The Monday Book: PARIS NEVER LEAVES YOU by Ellen Feldman

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I am a sucker for character driven plots, and this one is not. It was still an interesting read, but the whole thing is based on a “what if” premise, then the characters were kind of built around that.

What kind of person would pretend to be Jewish in Paris during World War II? Someone who was going to be in big trouble for having a German boyfriend. What kind of Jewish man would join the Nazis? Someone trying to survive.

The book is based both in the Paris bookshop the protagonist runs, and in the NYC publishing industry she flees to after the war. It’s an interesting premise but the book to me just followed the premise. The characters didn’t grow; they just went on doing what they do. Which might be part of the intention: after a harrowing experience, when you rebuild your life, how much can get you get back to living?

The writing is effective. The exploration of human nature–in this impossible situation, what would you do–is compelling. It was a worthwhile read. As you can tell, it wasn’t my favorite read ever, and one hesitates to call anything about such life or death situations a pleasant diversion, but this is the closest to a beach read I have ever seen a Holocaust novel come. Is that bad? Nah. Will I read other Feldman books. Probably, if just to see whether they are all based on premise or people.