House of Gold, by Natasha Solomons. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2018

The House of Gold is the Goldbaum dynasty, who own and run an international banking company. Probably the richest family is the world at the time of the novel (pre- and through WW 1), they keep it in the family by marrying cousins. Thus Greta Goldbaum of the Viennese branch of the family is arranged to marry Albert Goldbaum of the London branch. Never mind that they have never met and have nothing in common but their name. Goldbaum men are bankers; Goldbaum women marry Goldbaum men and have Goldbaum babies. Greta is not a quiet, do as she’s told girl and she balks at the thought of marrying someone she doesn’t know, that, furthermore, sounds boring as can be- an entomologist as a passionate hobby!. And, she’ll miss her brother, with whom she’s spent many a night outdoors, gazing up at the sky.

The marriage takes place as planned, of course. Albert turns out to be not a monster, but no more eager for the marriage than Greta is. Albert’s mother, though, takes to Greta. She is an avid gardener, and has huge greenhouses as well as outdoor plantings. She gives an undeveloped portion of the estate to Greta for her own garden, and Greta, despite never having shown an interest in learning before, reads gardening book after gardening book, taking it all very seriously but also joyously. She has found her forte. And it leads to a bit of a link to Albert- with any garden come insects. But this isn’t just a frivolity for Greta. When she finds herself with a home for unwed mothers on her hands, she starts teaching them vegetable and fruit gardening, so that they shall have a way of earning money once they are back on their own. I really enjoyed this aspect of the book, showing Greta’s growth.

When World War 1 breaks out, life changes. The younger Goldbaum men uniform up and go to war. The women roll bandages. The manor house is turned into a hospital. The Goldbaum men, formerly insulated from most of the bad things in the world, suddenly find themselves in horrendous circumstances, and not all survive.

I found Greta frustrating at first, but as her character grew and matured, I enjoyed her a great deal. The relationship of Greta and Albert was also a joy to read. The descriptions of the house and gardens were beautiful and detailed, which makes the harsh conditions and events of the war harder to read. And, of course, all the thread of anti-Semitism runs through it all. There are a lot of different threads woven into this tale, and several POVs, including an orphan who is not related to the family but was dependent on it for a while. Not all the threads get tied off at the end of the novel, which seemed abrupt and forced. Hopefully this means there will be a sequel. Four and a half stars.

 I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for an unbiased review. This did not influence my review.

Their Promised Land: My Grandparents in Love and War, by Ian Buruma. Penguin Press, 2016

Prolific writer of history and sociology Ian Buruma has focused on a very personal history in this book: that of his grandparents, Win and Bun (Winifred and Bernard) Schlesinger. Their love affair started around the same time that WW I did (although at that point it was discouraged by both families because of their youth) and continued right up to Bernard’s death in 1984, and it’s an affair that was closely narrated by their letters. During their separations during both World Wars, they wrote every day and many of those letters were saved, providing a treasure trove for Buruma.

Bun and Win’s parents were all prosperous- both their fathers were stock brokers- Jews who emigrated from Germany to England. They strove to fit into their adoptive country, celebrating Christmas and ignoring the anti-Semitism they ran into. When the First World War came, Win and Bun both desired to serve; Win became a nurse and Bun was a stretcher bearer on the fields, where he saw horrible things. Between the wars they married and started a family- which, during WW 2, increased suddenly by 12 Jewish children rescued from the Nazis.

Buruma’s focus is not just on the loving marriage of his grandparent’s, however. It’s also about cultural assimilation and anti-Semitism. Despite facing prejudice- Bernard’s employment prospects were limited because he was Jewish- the family remained devoted to England and *almost* all it stood for. This is a fascinating look at what is going on all around us now as people leave their home countries and face the same kind of prejudice. 

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- Amazon will give me a few cents. 

I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for an honest review. 

Neither of these things influenced my review.  

Mr. Mac and Me, by Esther Freud. Bloomsbury USA, 2014

Mr. Mac is the famed Scottish architect and artist Charles Rennie Macintosh. Me is young Thomas Maggs, son of the local pub managers. Maggs is club footed and has a talent for drawing; his fondest wish is to get out of little seaside village he lives in and see the world. His family spends its time working hard and trying to not upset his drunken, abusive father. When Macintosh and his beautiful, red haired, wife rent a tiny cottage in the seaside village, Maggs suddenly has someone who appreciates and even encourages his sketching of boats in the margins of his schoolwork. Soon Maggs is entangled in the lives of the Macintoshs as he sees lives that are very different from any he’s seen in the village. This budding relationship is threatened by the onset of WW 1 and the warnings the British government publish about spies and traitors; Macintosh speaks with a heavy accent- could he be German? He walks the cliffs at all hours, frequently using binoculars. There are German words in pamphlets in his house; he even corresponds with a German! Could he be in the village to spy for the Germans?

This is a coming of age story; young Maggs has his first romantic relationship, works for a rope maker to help support the family, learns to look at the world with new eyes, and learns horrid fear as Zeppelins fly overhead. It’s also a story about how abruptly lives can change; a village that people come to to enjoy holiday becomes a watchful town with soldiers billeted in it, handmade rope is being replaced by barbed wire, a Scotch artist is suddenly seen as a German spy, people die or nearly die, and people are changed in ways no one thought they could be.

The prose is just lovely; it’s like the words were lovingly set by a jewel maker. Freud made me able to see this little village and feel the fear of the Zeppelins. It was a delight to read.

I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program. The above is an affiliate link; if you click through and buy something, Amazon will give me a few cents. Neither of these things influenced my review. 

Park Lane, by Francis Osborne. Vintage Books, 2012

This book follows two women who live in a mansion on Park Lane: Bea, the single, recently jilted, daughter who still lives at home, and Grace, working as a housemaid despite her secretarial training because her lower class, northern accent bars her from London office work. Both Grace and Bea have secrets; Grace has told her family that she’s doing respectable office work rather than being a maid; Bea is joining her aunt as a follower of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, while Bea’s mother has long supported the non-violent suffragists. Bea and Grace are at the opposite ends of the social hierarchy in the house- and personality. Bea is an excitement junkie; loving fast cars and motorcycles, the thrilling fear at the suffragette rallies, fast ambulance driving practically on the front, and meeting a man who is ‘not of her class’. Grace seeks safety and worries constantly about not living up to family expectations.

Divided into years, the story covers 1914 to 1923 (with a gap between 1918 and 1923). This is a tumultuous age in England; WW I, socialism and the women’s suffrage movement all changed the lives of rich and poor alike. There is violence at the suffragette rallies, incredible loss of life in the trenches of WW I, post traumatic stress for both men and women (who drive ambulances in the war zones and nurse the torn up men), class differences come to mean a *little* less, and women gain more freedom well before they get the vote.

I enjoyed the book- I find the era fascinating (while a fan of Downton, I first was introduced to the era when PBS ran ‘The Forsyte Saga’ way back around 1970) and Osborne knows the time intimately- she had to, to write the brilliant biography ‘The Bolter’- and she has a great power of description. But I feel the book could have been better. Bea comes off as rather hard and it’s difficult to sympathize with her. Grace likable enough, but passages about things she goes through that should make us terrified for her are a bit flat. One character who connects the two women, Grace’s brother Michael, seems like he was created only to connect them- he’s introduced as a socialist, a budding writer, but he doesn’t really do anything with it. A subplot about sneaking books out of the house to him starts out extremely tense but is allowed to peter out to nothing. Because of these faults, I’m afraid I can only give the book four stars. But remember that this is Osborne’s first fiction book- when that’s taken into consideration, it’s pretty great.