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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Clarksville Book ReviewClarksville, TN – Once in a while when you’re in a second-hand store, you can run across a book you’ve missed when it first came out, but one that becomes a lifelong favorite. That’s what happened to me when I found “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (The Dial Press, August, 2008).

Who could resist a book with a title like this!

The entire book is a series of letters with the central character a writer named Juliet Ashton. The initial setting is just after World War II as Juliet is setting out on a book tour for her collection of columns she wrote during the war to help keep up spirits of those at home in England.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War has become a hit for Juliet and she is enjoying meeting the people who read her newspaper column when she wrote as Izzy Bickerstaff.

She returns home to the flat she rents (after her original flat was destroyed during the bombing of London) and receives a letter from a stranger, a native of Guernsey, a British island occupied throughout the war by the Nazis.

The letter writer had found Juliet’s name in the flyleaf of a book by Charles Lamb and wrote to her to ask about other books by this author. Dawsey Adams is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and was thrilled by Lamb’s description of a roast pig.

The society was formed after a dinner of roast pig that was in defiance of the Nazi rules against even owning such an animal without its being on their list of farm animals to feed their troops. The society was created by the quick thinking of one of the members as they were accosted by Nazis after curfew on the way home after the dinner.

Juliet and Dawsey begin corresponding and both their lives are changed in the ensuing months ahead as Juliet is being wooed by a rich American publisher who is determined to marry her.

Juliet defies her suitor when it becomes important to go to Guernsey to meet the members of this amazing group of readers, few of whom had ever read a book for pleasure before the society came into being.

The book is full of characters so alive you feel that you could pick them out of a crowd. Juliet’s publisher, Sidney, and his sister Sophie have been friends with Juliet since childhood from the time she was sent to boarding school after both her parents were killed.

The members of the Society also weave a story of life under the Nazis during the war and the hardships they endured. A charming child named Kit, only four years old, becomes extremely important in the life of Juliet; her mother Elizabeth is at the center of the formation of the Society and her heroism leads to her being the central character in Juliet’s next book.

The authors, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, are aunt and niece respectively. Ms. Shaffer was an editor, a librarian and worked in bookshops. Her background gives credence to several areas of the plot. Ms. Barrows writes children’s books like The Magic Half and stories about Ivy and Bean, well-known in American children’s literature.

Ms. Shaffer fell ill and died before the book was finished and Ms. Barrows completed the manuscript.

Annie Barrows has a new book coming out on June 9th, 2015— “The Truth According to Us”. I plan to be in line for a copy the day it comes out!

It’s not too late to read “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”. You’ll be glad you did.

Sue Freeman Culverhouse
Sue Freeman Culverhousehttp://culverhouseart.com/
Author of Tennessee Literary Luminaries: From Cormac McCarthy to Robert Penn Warren (The History Press, 2013) Sue Freeman Culverhouse has been a freelance writer for the past 36 years. Beginning in 1976, she published magazines articles in Americana, Historic Preservation, American Horticulturist, Flower and Garden, The Albemarle Magazine, and many others. Sue is the winner of two Virginia Press Awards in writing. She moved to Springfield, Tennessee in 2003 with her sculptor husband, Bill a retired attorney. Sue has one daughter,  Susan Leigh Miller who teaches poetry and creative writing at Rutgers University. Sue teaches music and writing at Watauga Elementary School in Ridgetop, Tennessee to approximately 500 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. She also publishes a literary magazine each year; all work in the magazine is written and illustrated by the students. Sue writes "Uncommon Sense," a column in the Robertson County Times, which also appears on Clarksville Online. She is the author of "Seven keys to a sucessful life", which is  available on amazon.com and pubishamerica.com; this is a self-help book for all ages.
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