When You Make Assumptions…- “Lilac Girls” by Martha Hall Kelly

This book, like approximately 60% of any book being published right now, is set during World War II.   While I do understand that WWII as a device is extremely compelling for writers I  wonder when this trend will begin to tamper off.  Honestly, it is getting a little wearisome.  And this was my mind-set when I started “Lilac Girls” – oh look another WWII book.  Which is too bad because this book is well researched, well written and two of the characters are based on real people.  Unfortunately, at the time I read this book I did not know it was based on real people. So please forgive my assumptions which will be included in this review for your amusement.

The novel covers the life of three woman during WWII, dedicating each Chapter to one of the woman and the story flits back and forth.  There is Caroline, a former broadway actress and blue-blooded New Englander, who lives in New York City and volunteers her time for the French Consulate helping French orphans.  Across the ocean, Kasia Kuzmerick is living in Poland and is one-quarter Jewish when the Nazis invade her town.    Herta Oberheuser is a young German doctor looking for employment and a way to be independent and financially secure.

The three lives come together in both harrowing and beautiful ways.  Kasia becomes a part of the Polish resistance, only to eventually be taken to Ravensbrück when captured by the SS.  Herta finds a position at a wonderful spa-like resort (also Ravensbrück) doing medical experiments on political prisoners, including Kasia which she seems to excuse by the mind-set that are meant to be executed anyway.  And Caroline falls in love with a married man, prunes lilacs and after the war raises money for the women who suffered from the experiments of Dr. Herta Oberheuser.

As apparent by my description, as I read the book, I found Caroline’s story to be the least interesting and the most drawn out. Again, I had no idea this was based on a real life, so I was a bit confused as to why this character’s story mattered.  Now that I am not as ignorant as I was before realize that Kelly had some limitations here with Caroline.  Her real story does indeed have a lot of parts to it, as most lives do, and I admire Kelly for trying to write so much about Caroline.  She was quite the hero in multiple ways through-out the war but particularly in helping the women who had cruelly suffered both medically and psychologically from the camps. So I am that jerk who feels like her story lags a bit (I really am sorry about that).

I do think one of the short-comings of the book is Herta’s story.  At the beginning, Kelly seems committed to examining Herta’s choices and explaining how she ended up becoming who she was and doing what she did.   But in the middle of the book, Herta’s voice seems to end. I am unclear if Kelly wrote chapters here that were removed or if she just felt like she couldn’t push that envelope further.  Either way, it seems that it would have been interesting to follow Herta through her arrest and her time in prison to her release and reentry into society.  If the book starts with these three stories then it seems disjointed that it somehow become two stories instead.

To Kelly’s credit, this first book is quite a feat.   I will also admit I came to this book with assumptions and a bit of an attitude.  Needless to say, Kelly as a writer has my attention and I look forward to her next book.

But seriously writers, there really are other wars to write about. I promise…