Set in Bavaria, Germany, The Women of the Castle follows three women as they come to terms with the end of World War II and the arrival of the Russians and Americans. I do love historical fiction and I haven't read a huge number of novels set in post-war Germany (The Reader is the only novel that springs to my mind). The premise, seeing three very different women thrown together in a dilapidated castle, intrigued me.
Marianne von Lingenfels' husband was a Nazi resistor. The castle is his family legacy and so she returns there after his execution for a plot to assassinate Hitler. She is the matriarch of the strange family that is formed after she goes in search of other resistance widows. Benita is the beautiful widow of Marianne's childhood friend, Connie. Less principled that Marianne, she blames her husband for abandoning her. Rescued from sexual slavery, Marianne hopes that they will become allies, while Benita is not sure that she believes in Marianne's high ideals. A third woman, Ania, is found in a labour camp and brought to the castle, but perhaps isn't quite who she seems.
This is a novel that hops around in time, beginning with a prologue in 1938 before jumping ahead to 1945. There are other jumps - filling in the gaps in Benita and Ania's pasts for example, then moving forward again to 1950. At times I did struggle a little, and if each chapter hadn't been signposted with dates and location (the castle is, disappointingly, only a small part of the story) then I would have been lost. I did start to wish that Shattuck had concentrated on a story within the castle timeline as there was lots there that was left unexplored. In some ways, as this is a book written around the author's own family history, and following years of research, I wondered if she had felt constrained to tell a certain story.
The blurb on the jacket cover promises that Benita will begin a clandestine relationship, and that Ania is trying to conceal a complicated role in the Nazi regime. I thought that these would be key moments, exploding Marianne's dreams, but in reality by the time these revelations come they seem to lack the danger that they would have had if the women had all been together at the castle. When Marianne feels betrayed she just walks away and there is no real consequence (actually, perhaps for Benita there is, but I feel that her actions are driven by complex factors which could have done with more scrutiny).
I thought that this was a well written novel, examining difficult situations within a complex war, and Shattuck does well to make the history enjoyable to read. I just wish that, with the ingredients she had at her disposal, she'd written a story that examined the relationships between the women more closely.
Marianne von Lingenfels' husband was a Nazi resistor. The castle is his family legacy and so she returns there after his execution for a plot to assassinate Hitler. She is the matriarch of the strange family that is formed after she goes in search of other resistance widows. Benita is the beautiful widow of Marianne's childhood friend, Connie. Less principled that Marianne, she blames her husband for abandoning her. Rescued from sexual slavery, Marianne hopes that they will become allies, while Benita is not sure that she believes in Marianne's high ideals. A third woman, Ania, is found in a labour camp and brought to the castle, but perhaps isn't quite who she seems.
This is a novel that hops around in time, beginning with a prologue in 1938 before jumping ahead to 1945. There are other jumps - filling in the gaps in Benita and Ania's pasts for example, then moving forward again to 1950. At times I did struggle a little, and if each chapter hadn't been signposted with dates and location (the castle is, disappointingly, only a small part of the story) then I would have been lost. I did start to wish that Shattuck had concentrated on a story within the castle timeline as there was lots there that was left unexplored. In some ways, as this is a book written around the author's own family history, and following years of research, I wondered if she had felt constrained to tell a certain story.
The blurb on the jacket cover promises that Benita will begin a clandestine relationship, and that Ania is trying to conceal a complicated role in the Nazi regime. I thought that these would be key moments, exploding Marianne's dreams, but in reality by the time these revelations come they seem to lack the danger that they would have had if the women had all been together at the castle. When Marianne feels betrayed she just walks away and there is no real consequence (actually, perhaps for Benita there is, but I feel that her actions are driven by complex factors which could have done with more scrutiny).
I thought that this was a well written novel, examining difficult situations within a complex war, and Shattuck does well to make the history enjoyable to read. I just wish that, with the ingredients she had at her disposal, she'd written a story that examined the relationships between the women more closely.