I read a few stories in this book in November 2022, and it took me over a year to return to it. Wave Me Goodbye is an anthology of stories about World War II; all the authors are women and most of the stories were published between 1939 and 1949; all but one story was written at that time. Many of the stories are about the home front, focusing on the lives of the people who did not go off to war, and in this case, mostly the experiences of the women left behind.
The collection was first put together and published in 1988. The "Introduction," written by the editor, Anne Boston, for this new printing, is excellent. There are two informational sections at the end. The "Notes on the Authors" section provides background information on each author, which was especially useful to me because I had not read anything by most of the authors. The "Acknowledgements" section provides information on when and where the stories were published.
Here are my thoughts on a few of the stories I read recently...
Kay Boyle's "Defeat" is about French soldiers returning to France after they have been defeated by the Germans. They are disappointed and disenchanted with the reception they get from the French citizens they encounter. This story was published in the May 17, 1941 issue of The New Yorker.
In "Goodbye My Love" by Mollie Panter-Downes, a married couple have a few days together before he has to leave for a posting during the war, destination unknown. Once he has gone, she finally settles into some acceptance of his absence. Then there is a brief reprieve; he won't be leaving for a week or more, and she will have to go through the agonizing buildup to his departure once again.
Two stories cover similar subjects: "Miss Anstruther's Letters" by Rose Macaulay and "Night in the Front Line" by Molly Lefebure. They deal with the devastation of the Blitz, the terror of waiting for the bombing to end, and the loss of a place to live and personal treasures.
In Olivia Manning’s "A Journey" a woman travels to Cluj to report on the Hungarian occupation of Transylvania, a region in Romania. When the reporter gets to Cluj, the city is in chaos, and it is hard to find a place to stay. She does her best to get the story she needs, then has a harrowing experience trying to get out of the city, as everyone else is also desperate to leave.
Other stories I read were:
- Anna Kavan's "Face of My People"
- Barbara Pym's "Goodbye Balkan Capital"
- Jean Rhys’s "I Spy a Stranger"
All of the stories I read were good, although many of them were sad or depressing. I have seventeen stories left to read. I like that most of the stories are between 10-15 pages long.
Other writers represented are Elizabeth Taylor, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Doris Lessing, Inez Holden, Beryl Bainbridge, Edna Ferber, Dorothy Parker, Elizabeth Bowen, Marjorie Sharp, Pat Frank, Diana Gardner, Malachi Whitaker, Ann Chadwick, A. L. Barker, Jean Stafford and Stevie Smith.
16 comments:
Oh, now this is very odd. I was watching a YT video last night by one of my favourite bookish people and this exact short story collection was one of the books she talked about. Now here you are talking about it. It has to be a sign and that's all the excuse I need to try and find a copy. LOL!
A link to the video in case you're interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpfawY_-nnI
This sounds like a great collection: and you and I do share that fascination with the war years, and particularly how women coped...
This sounds like a fascinating book with a fantastic lineup of authors, Tracy.
One correction: Not all the autho9rs were women. Pat Frank was the writing name of Harry Hart Frank, most noted for ALAS BABYLON and Mr. ADAM. His story in this book was first published in COLLIER'S in 1939.
I like this theme, Tracy. It was such an important and influential time, and having women's perspectives on it sounds really interesting.
Cath, that is an interesting coincidence. Recently when I was looking into this book more, I found a couple of book tube videos that included it but I did not watch them because I did not think they would fit my needs at that moment. So it must be getting some attention lately.
I don't know if this was one of them, but I did start listening to this and find the section that talks about this book. The first part of the video (as you know) is about The Story, edited by Victoria Hislop, and one description says it is women's short fiction over two centuries. I will look into that but will have to wait until the book sale, there does not appear to be an ebook edition but I bet it would be expensive if it existed.
It is a good collection, Moira, but not a light read. One of the stories I did not understand and I am going to have to research it more. You introduced me to a lot of home front fiction and I thank you for that.
The war stories you mention do sound quite depressing or tough. What a time period to have been writing. So much angst. Will you be continuing on with the collection? I'm curious about a few of the other authors. Bainbridge perhaps.
Jerry, Thanks for that interesting information. I checked in the Notes on the Authors section, and for the author Pat Frank, there was one sentence, much less than any of the others.
At least now I know more about Pat Frank and ALAS BABYLON than I did before.
Margot, it is just amazing and unsettling how war affects people's lives, and upends them.
Susan, I will definitely read all the stories in the book. This is a subject I am really interested in, what it was like during the war for the people who did not go off to fight. Plus, women's participation in the war. With short story books, I do get distracted though and sometimes take a while to finish the entire book.
I am also interested in a lot of the authors that are left. I believe Elizabeth Taylor is the only one I have read anything by.
These stories are really interesting to me, especially the ones written and published during the war itself. Sounds like they touch on emotions and how psychologically devastating everyday life was to people experienced it all first hand. None of the author names rang a bell, but it makes me wonder what else they wrote, and if they wrote novels on the same subject matter.
I'm familiar with the work of a little more than half the contributors (and not a few of them, from Silvia T. Warner on over to Pat Frank, wrote some fantastica of one sort or another--Frank's ALAS, BABYLON is perhaps unsurprisingly dystopian, given the era), and in looking into some of the writers I've found particularly engaging and their uncollected stories (from fiction magazines and, of all genders, not a few in women's magazines, such as Wilma Shore and John D. MacDonald) not a little of their work written and published during WW2 and not long after...or in anthologies that I've covered as Friday Books, such as one from HARPER'S BAZAAR...a real pity that the surviving "gendered" magazines barely if ever publish fiction, as one moves from title to title, unless one includes some of their articles). I suspect there will be no little heartbreak in the rest of the book, but you've got me interested in seeking it out, as well.
Sam, I have heard of a few of the authors, and read a book by two of them; several others I would be happy to try. I will doing some research on them as I have time.
I agree, Todd, I expect most of the remaining stories to be serious and sad. I have run into some other anthologies with stories by some of these authors, and would also think that their stories would have been published in magazines. Both my grandmother and mother were devotees of magazines, and in my mother's case, she read them instead of books.
WOMEN'S WORLD runs mystery and romance vignettes, and the young-woman-oriented BUST runs an erotic vignette in every issue...not sure any of the others make much room for fiction per se these years. REDBOOK was, I think, the diehard this way, in terms of continuing to run a variety of fiction, and the FAMILY CIRCLE folks did launch several years of MARY HIGGINS CLARK MYSTERY MAGAZINE (and, more recently if less engagingly, a one-shot item...don't remember if it carried new fiction, as I don't recall looking too closely at it).
Todd, I don't remember exactly what fiction my grandmother read but I do remember at some point when I was in college she gave me a good number of Rex Stout paperbacks, so she must have read some crime fiction. When I was much younger than that she would give me her Reader's Digest versions of some novels to read.
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