- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
- The Dial Press, 288 pp.
- CLR Rating:
Novel Letters
Such a pity Mary Ann Shaffer is not around to enjoy her celebrity! Shaffer died in February of this year and thus missed her own miracle—best-sellerdom for a first book written by an already “mature” librarian, former bookseller, and unpublished, aspiring writer. The good news, however, is that her opus is engaging, ingenious and ahead of the publishing game.
Not only is the novel bound to be a favorite of book clubs, it is paradoxically devoted to an oddly-designated book club in Guernsey, that of the title, a group invented on the spot by farmers and fishermen there when they were caught drunk after curfew, by their Nazi occupiers during the World War II.
Their winding tale develops as they successfully confound their German invaders and learn in the bargain how to amuse themselves by reading books.
Its heroine is a successful journalist and Londoner, Juliet Ashton, exhausted and devastated by her times, who has been burned out and left homeless by the heavy bombing of the Blitz. Her newspaper columns under the title, “Izzy Biggerstaff Goes To War,” are newly-collected by her publisher as a book, which Juliet is now touring. And it is during these triumphant appearances that her ennui, her discontent with life, surfaces.
Shaffer, together with her niece, Annie Barrows (who joined her to help finish the book as Shaffer’s health declined) open the novel with their heroine informing her publisher, Sidney Stark, of the situation. That letter commences what is to become their novel about the war years upon Guernsey Island and the brutality of their Nazi occupiers.
Juliet reveals straight out on page 1 that despite the publisher’s firm making good money on her work, she simply can’t go on as she has:
“…my head and heart just aren’t in it. Dear as Issy Bickerstaff is—and was—to me, I don’t want to write anything else under that name. I don’t want to be considered a light-hearted journalist anymore. I do acknowledge that making readers laugh—or at least chuckle during the war was no mean feat, but I don’t want to do it anymore….”
She is clearly seeking something altogether fresh. And we witness how oddly this next enthusiasm comes into being. Indeed, it evolves into an epistolary novel!
And that is suggested by a letter: this time from a complete stranger, Dawsey Adams, a farmer of Guernsey in those Channel Islands. His query is altogether innocent. He explains that he has Miss Ashton’s address because it is on the flyleaf of an old book that once belonged to her, “The Selected Essays of Elia,” written by the author whose name in real life was Charles Lamb.
He explains further that there were currently no bookstores to be found on Guernsey—the time is just after World War II—and he had the idea of writing to her for a favor. Could he perchance take the liberty of asking for her suggestion of the name of a bookshop in London where he might find some more of Lamb’s writings to be mailed to him there in Guernsey?
Adams goes on to confess his new love for Lamb’s work, which he had discovered quite by accident and which had managed “to make him laugh during the German Occupation,” “especially when he (Lamb) wrote about the roast pig.” Her correspondent adds that “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came into being because of a roast pig we had to keep secret from the German soldiers….” Hence his current kinship with Mr. Lamb.
Indeed, the farmer’s letter had surprised and delighted Juliet since she too was a lover of Charles Lamb. Moreover, she marveled that he had addressed it to her former home, which no longer stood; yet somehow the letter had managed to reach her in her rented flat; better still, to cheer her out of her newly-dispirited state.
In fact, it was the latter’s additional offering about their odd-sounding book club that made our heroine just curious enough to write him back at once; and moreover to do so with a spontaneous confession in her note that she herself considered Lamb’s favorite phrase to be: “buz, buz, buz, bum, bum, bum, wheeze, wheeze, wheese, fen, fen, fen,tinky, tinky, tinky, cr’annnch!” (uttered while the author was soused.)
She generously dispatches the gift of a biography of Charles Lamb, as well as the news that she has placed an order for his Selected Letters too, in which he might find more of that particular nonsense of Lamb’s she often enjoyed.
So does this epistolary novel embark. Our heroine is drawn into the life of Dawsey Adams and his many literary companions on Guernsey (who write to her as well with particulars of how they managed to survive their years under the Germans). And Juliet Ashton’s voice carries her own sardonic tone as she also communicates with publisher and friends by letter.
Thus do these authors engage us in their storytelling, their sharp character development via the several voices we hear loudly sounding off to our heroine. Yet this is but a beginning for these novelists. They are more ambitious still. Shaffer and Barrows are actually talking books here, to booklovers and readers everywhere, above all, they are talking to writers. Issy Biggerstaff himself, the subject of Juliet Ashton’s newspaper columns, goes back to a figure invented long ago by Jonathan Swift (not, as the authors claim, to Joseph Addison, who actually borrowed that name from his friend Swift’s satires to use in his magazine, The Tattler).
So we’re immediately entangled here not only with Charles Lamb, but with the lively and often snarky opinions proffered by her Guernsey correspondents on writers as varied as the Bronte sisters, Thomas Carlyle, Wilfred Owen, William Wordsworth, and Jane Austen, among others.
We see further evidence of this preoccupation when later on in the novel and out of the blue, one character, Isola Prissy, introduces her Granny ‘Pheen’s mysterious letters, those she had had in her early youth from a “kind stranger” who had once stopped his carriage on the road when he noted the little girl sitting there alone and weeping. They kept coming as comfort from him when he learned of the harsh death of her beloved cat at the hands of her cruel father. The letters were kept, Isola reports, in a tin biscuit over the years, from which Granny ‘Pheen had often read to her young granddaughter as bedtime stories.
When Juliet Ashton subsequently examines them, she notes the odd signature upon every one, “O.F.O’F.W.W.” and wonders to her publisher, astonished and out loud, “Could it possibly be that Isola has inherited eight letters written by Oscar Wilde?” She next tells him she is “beside myself” over the possibility! And then, fills us in with the scholarly information that Wilde’s full name was the “preposterous” Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Will Wilde! All of which drives her to ask of her publisher to find out whether Wilde had actually ever been over to Guernsey?
There is a breathless quality to the pacing of Shaffer and Barrows’ novel. It never drags: and although this might seem a quibble, what did occur to this reader—more than once while reading—was to demand—with Beaumont and Fletcher—that they “plot me no plots!”
Certainly, the author’s account of Guernsey life under the Nazi yoke might have sufficed for the opus, with its horrific details about the deliberate starvation of young slave-laborers, Polish prisoners known as the “Todt workers,” to say nothing of their depiction of the deprivation of the islanders of their entire crops, year after year, to starve them as well. Or, consider the touchingly described scenes of the heroism these Guernsey islanders displayed in the face of such an enemy together with the brutal treatment they were given when arrested.
In the life and times of one Elizabeth McKenna alone, they have managed to give us a heroic portrait of a remarkable figure whose her every action proves true to her neighbors and friends on the island, whose presence and influence is ever felt by Guernsey folk (a character who never even appears in the book!).
One further cavil: In a work whose tone is so clever, whose voice is one tongue-glued in cheek—too often their tale teetered at the brink. At such instances, one felt in danger of its plunging into treacle, drowning in saccharine—so goody-goody and pat seemed their characterizations.
But no matter. While they can boast of a heroine who approaches a Beginners Cook Book for Girl Guides and calls it “just the thing for her” because its Guernsey writer commences with the advice, “when adding eggs break the shells first,” these novelists need have little fear. They can count on best-sellerdom all the way!
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September 29th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Just finished reading this most enchanting book. The characters are so real and I would love to meet them!
Will have to read more about Guernsey.
October 18th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
This book was TOO short! What a wonderful read. I have to keep putting it down so I won’t finish too soon.
October 31st, 2008 at 8:10 am
Absolutely delightful book!! This reader wants to book her trip to Guernsey. The great sadness (in addition to horrors of war) is that author Shaffer is not alive to bask in the joy that she has given to many readers.
January 11th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I enjoyed this book so much.
Having interest in both the islands around England and Ireland and interest in sufferings people endured during war made me ask for this book as a Christmas gift.
It is undoubtedly the best book I have read in some time and the best Christmas gift I received this year.
I wanted it to last longer.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I just loved this book, fell in love with all the characters. I want to find a pen pal now and write more letters!!!
January 26th, 2009 at 1:37 am
I just finished this book for my book group. When I started it I felt it would be tiresome. I was quickly caught up in the characters. It actually had a good pace with both lighthearted parts and reality parts. I felt though that at the end the pace was on fast forward.
April 11th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I totally agree with the review of Marjorie! I thought the book quirky in the beginning, but had heard that it was worth reading; so I trudged on. Little did I know what was awaiting me. The way that Shaffer and Barrows went from slow pace to fast was engaging. I enjoyed the creativity of the plot and how it continued to unfold. A great book; I didn’t want it to end! How sad that Mary Ann Shaffer is deceased; what a loss to readers everywhere!
May 7th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
I too loved this book. Somehow I seem to remember seeing a movie on tv that either was about this book or a story very familiar to this one. Does anyone else remember seeing it?I too wanted the book to last longer. I have a habit of letting myself stop reading close to the end of a wonderful book just to make it last longer. Once it is over it seems like loosing a good friend.
June 11th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
You’ll find yourself smiling as you read this book – a delight!
June 16th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Such a beautiful story. I too, didn’t want it to end. I am recommending my book Club select it for the next season beginning in Sept. The joy of reading the book lingers on.
I read, read, read a wide range of books and I would venture to say author, Mary Ann Shaffer’s literary accomplishment would be a classic.
June 21st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Like some of the previous comments, the book was a slow start for me, but I had to keep reading, since it is the June selection for our book group. Reading the book on my Kindle on a 13 hour plane trip to India, I could not put it down. I loved the fact that the whole story is done in letters. What a clever writing style.
Yes, I would love to make a trip to Guernsey!
June 24th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I’m just curious – I’m just on page 70 (reading this for my book club) and I can’t understand how these letters go back and forth so quickly. For example, Mark writes to Juliet about going out together, she writes back, he writes back, etc…… 5 letters written on the same date. How are they going back and forth?? (Just curious!) Thanks for any help!
July 1st, 2009 at 11:55 am
Hi, barbara, just finished reading this book today and in response to you question about how can letters get passed so quickly, well in the city such is london they would have had delivery boys, who delivered letters and perhaps waited for a reply, so there was possibly a errand boy who delived a letter and waited for a reply and so forth. Lovely book, am living in Ireland and am heading to France again, travelling through Normandy, i always love reading about France.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:15 am
I had to put the book down when I neared the end for fear it would be over…………..but, alas, I made myself finish it. Now I am sad to go online to discover that Shaffer is no longer on this earth to write a sequel! What a great read and I loved getting to know the characters. Now, I’m off to search for a book that I can enjoy as much as I did Guernsey…if that’s possible.
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Another wonderful book about Guernsey is The Book of Ebenezer Le Page:
http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=7036.
I read it many years ago and absolutely loved it and am now tempted to go back and re-read it.
July 8th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Thank you for all of your helpful comments. I am currently on page 94 and find this somewhat of a “slow read”. It does not provide me with the drive or eagerness to pick it up each night. But I will continue, hoping that it becomes fast-paced reading.
July 25th, 2009 at 1:48 am
Hi Barbara
Actually, mail was delivered several times a day by the Royal Mail. In the late 1800s there were 7 mail deliveries a day in London.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
I loved this book. I fell in love with the characters. When i was done with the book I was so sad. I felt a connection to the characters in the story. It was a wonderful book and I was sad that I finished too soon.
August 1st, 2009 at 1:58 am
Wonderfully reminiscent of Helen Hanff’s 1970 “84 Charing Cross Road,” a book about a long correspondence, between writer Hanff and a British bookstore proprietor, during World War II. I adored both books! Hanff’s was made into a movie in the 1980’s.
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Nan Botazu wrote: “Somehow I seem to remember seeing a movie on tv that either was about this book or a story very familiar to this one. Does anyone else remember seeing it?”
I conjecture that she is thinking of “Island at War”, a Brit mini-series with Saskia Reeves which appeared on PBS in 2005. Well-worth seeking out.
August 12th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
If you have the chance to listen to the audio production of the wonderful book, you will be completely taken in by the fantastic voices that give life to these characters. I have decided this is my favorite book to listen to, ever! In fact, it is always on my ipod and I have listened to it several times already.
It really is a shame that there will not be a sequel.
August 20th, 2009 at 12:18 am
August 19, 1009
I am reading this book presently. Since I am hosting our Book Club at my home in September, the selection was mine to make. I also was drawn in slowly and truly needed to sort out the letter writers in my mind at first. Guess what I plan to serve at our meeting? I am creating a potato pie peel recipe to honor this book:-) Yes, I best offer a muffin or some sweet treat also along with coffee.
August 20th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Barbara Acosta again. Please forgive my incorrect date – it is of course 2009, not 1009! Also, my book club refreshment will be the same as the book’s title “Potato Peel Pie” not Potato Pie Peel! The hour is late:-)
August 25th, 2009 at 12:04 am
I also loved this book. And was sad when it was over. I wouldn’t mind turning it over and starting again. I will miss my Guernsey friends. It will take me a few days before I can start the next book on my reading list.
It is a book I will recommend to everyone, especially my book crazy friends. We are discussing it in my book group this month (August) and I look forward to the discussion. Not sure if I will serve Potato Peel Pie!
September 7th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
I too loved this book and passed it on to my 89 year old mother this spring. She enjoyed it so much that she limited the number of pages she read each day. Often, we talked with excitement on the phone about where she was in the book. Little did she know that a sudden health issue would have her leave her home for good with the last 30 pages remaining to be read. When I arrived at her bedside in the hospital, I surprised her with the book in hand. We finished this, our last book together with laughter and tears as her life ebbed to a close. My mom said she thought it was the best book she had ever read. Me too, for many reasons.
September 13th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Even reading the comments proved delightful! I ditto the habit of putting myself on a page-controlled reading diet for this book. My favorite beautifully written books are those which succinctly yet magically tell a story. I could “hear” the characters’ accents reading their letters aloud. I had no desire to skip ahead to discover the fate of a relationship or the outcome of the prisoners. This is not that kind of action packed thriller with words to be stepped over to get to the action. Brilliant, precise writing – who better to write such a work than a brilliant, precise Librarian! I would have loved to have met Ms. Shafer. To Pegg Davidson: So sorry for the loss of your Mother. To have read this to your Mom knowing how glad she was to have you there with her favorite book will be a source of comfort to you. May the Lord bless you.
September 16th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I just loved this book and couldn’t put it down ,
In fact, I recently picked it up to lend to a friend – and sat down and read it again in one sitting ! It was like peeling an onion – layers of learning about the horrors of war in guernsey and London, books , the authors, fictional and real etc . And we see that even in War there are “good ” baddies ,( ( Barbara’s doctor ) and ” bad” goodies ( the islander that betrayed them ) . Wonderful!
September 18th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Those who enjoyed this book may also enjoy the BBC mini-series “Foyle’s War,” featuring fascinating looks at how war-related issues like rationing and the black market affected ordinary British citizens in villages.
September 23rd, 2009 at 11:20 am
I just finished reading this wonderful book! Unlike many of the reviewers, I’m no nibbler. Instead, I gobbled it up in two evenings. What a delectable feast! No doubt I will read it again and savor every morsel but I just didn’t have the self discipline this first time around. I will recommend this book to all my book buddies!
October 1st, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I’m reading this on vacation – for the second time really, as while I was reading it the first time and also not wanting it to end, I made up my mind to start at the very beginning again, which I have done. First time in my life I have done this. I was going to write to the author and tell her how much I enjoyed it, came to this website in my search for information about a possible movie, and discovered with sadness that Ms. Shaffer has passed away. What a great book she left us all. I like the idea of hearing it on audio with accents, so that’s the next step. Thanks for the suggestion, Heidi.
October 8th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
I started the book yesterday and finished it today! I loved every word! A friend loaned it to me and I told her yesterday how it reminded my of “84 Charing Cross Road”. It wasn’t until today that I read the reviews in the front of the book to see that someone from the Library Journal felt the same way! I have already looked online to learn about Guernsey and would love to visit that beautiful island. Perhaps I’ll win the lottery! My biggest problem now is finding a book to read that I shall love as well!! “Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad ones” but I’ll just have to start looking! I’d love any suggestions! Kathy
October 12th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Such a delightful book. I loved “84 Charing Cross Road” so was thrilled to find this book. Thanks to Pegg Davidson re reading the book to her mother. My mother loved 84 Charing Cross Road” so will take this book with me when I visit my 97 year old mum in December (we live in different states) Jean
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:53 pm
A fascinating book! Also so true. My husband was one of the Guernsey evacuees! The characters may be ficticious but their stories are very real. We could even visualise some of the characters as they remind us of real people we know. One of our family was killed when St. Peter Port was bombed – he hid under a tomato truck! It was time for some of the stories of the occupation to be aired as so many people do not realise just how much the people of the Channel Islands did suffer under the German occupation. When my husband returned home at the end of the war he barely recognised his mother due to the toll food deprivation had taken on her. A diet of seaweed and cabbage leaves for many months is hard to survive on. The chapel made from broken crockery exists. The story of the Todt prisoners is true – and horrendous. Many more than one Islander was sent to concentration camps – never to return. This wonderful book had to be well researched to provide its story. Believe me – it all really DID happen! The only pity is that it was not longer or will not have a sequel.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Have read the book twice. It was recommended by a friend but is also on the reading list of a wonderful series of literary lectures given each year by Elaine Newton at the Naples Philharmonic. First time I could not read fast enough as I so enjoyed the story. The second time was on a trip by plane and I read slowly so it would last. We have a wonderful library system and I was interested enough by some of the letters to read Seneca’s letters, some of the World War I poetry mentioned, as well as dipping into Lamb. Am planning to reread the book before it will be discussed at the December lecture. It is truly a book for those who love to read.
November 7th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
A warm and cheering cup of tea. Just the thing for difficult times and yes, it does come close to being a bit too sweet at times but somehow, stops just short of it so that we fall back into the truth of the tale. Given the stark reality and terrible places we sometimes had to visit, a touch of sugar was welcome more often than not.
Rich and gorgeously full characters and placed into settings that are so well drawn I can close my eyes and see it all. As to the comments about the speed of letters — I understand in the UK at the time there was a morning post and an afternoon post, so that you mailed your question in the morning and had your reply in the afternoon. In the 1920s, my grandfather proposed an elopement to my grandmother in just such a fashion.
I did not want this book to stop. It ended too quickly but I smiled nonetheless. Lovely. Just lovely.
November 29th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I find it very depressing that so many grown ups rave about this book. It is really a children’s book, a bit like the Horrible Histories – perhaps for ladies – in the mould of Ladies and Home. The characters are [honey, the situations silly. The tall handsome hero, although a German, his golden hair singles him out as different and his lover Elizabeth, so perfect except she fraternized with the Germans…
It’s fair enough for someone to write the book but it’s truly a bad piece of literature.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
I feel sad for Elle Low. If you didn’t enjoy and adore this book, you must be troubled.
December 13th, 2009 at 7:59 am
I must be troubled because I agree with Elle Low. I was well disposed towards the book to begin with and I went on to find the information about the German occupation fascinating. But the simple, good-hearted locals (with their natural affinity for classical literature)and the ludicrous romantic ending! Oh dear. I ended up feeing as if I’d read a pastiche of Dodie Smith (whose books I enjoy). We can’t all like the same thing and obviously this book gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure. But let’s not go over the top.
January 5th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
My sister (a prolific reader)gave me this book for Christmas this year. I am so very glad she did. I loved it, I could not put it down, read it in one day.
Unfortunately I just found out there will be no sequel. How sad Ms. Shaffer has passed. But all the same I thank her and Ms. Barrows for this wonderful book.
January 6th, 2010 at 5:03 am
I’m afraid I agree with Elle and Penelope. It is a rather saccharine little book, and the tone of the early letters really gave me the pip! I’m sure that people never really spoke like that – no-one I have ever known did, whether they were English or not.
However, I think it will have a role in letting people know more about the terrible things that happened to ordinary people in Europe during and just after WWII. Juliet says that most Americans didn’t seem touched by the war, and maybe this book will help with that gap. I agree with the recomendation for the Foyles War TV series – they are much grimmer and more realistic than this book.
January 11th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
My partner and I listened to the book on audio “performed” by an absolutely first-rate English cast as we drove to Boston from Maine and returned the next afternoon. When we were done we could identify all the characters by name, were struck by our familiarity with most of the literature discussed, and our new-found familiarity with the Guernsey surroundings. A total delight!
March 17th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
I just finished reading this book in the new digital format offered by the Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The clarity and listenability of this format is absolutely wonderful, and the female narrator was extraordinary in her ability to represent the various colorful characters. The book delighted me, though I felt that the ending was a bit contrived. I, too, wish that the author could be with us to read so many enthusiastic comments.
March 20th, 2010 at 1:39 am
I’ve just finished reading this novel and found it highly engaging from start to finish. I loved it.
My only quibble would be I found the foreshadowing of the central love story heavy-handed, from the start (maybe designed to mimic features of the 18th novel, like Pride and Prejudice – and hence wholly successful?).
I thought the understated, gut-wrenching portrayal of the Guernsey war realities was particularly well handled.
Is this chic-lit? I see possibly only one comment from a male. Are there men out there who have loved this novel, too?