The girl in the blue beret

Review by New York Times Review

BOBBIE ANN MASON'S new novel opens with a little history. A note explains that "during World War II, thousands of Allied aviators crashed or parachuted into Occupied Europe," and many were helped home by the "escape-and-evasion networks" of the French Resistance. This information is followed by the roster of a flight crew based at Molesworth Airfield in England, home of the 303rd Bomb Group - specifically the men who took one Flying Fortress, the Dirty Lily, on a raid over Frankfurt on Jan. 31, 1944. This squadron did indeed bomb this German city from this airfield, but not on this night. And the names of the crew are fictitious. "The Girl in the Blue Beret" is a work in which the real and the imaginary are joined. The novel's hero, Marshall Stone, was the co-pilot on that raid, which ended with a crash landing in a field in Belgium. He escaped through France and into Spain with the help of the Resistance, and more than 35 years later, as the novel begins, he is 60, a widower, newly retired. "I'd like to retrace the trail I took through France in '44," he tells his daughter as he sets out on what she terms "a little trip to the past." Just before he retired, Marshall visited the scene of the crash. Now he rents an apartment in Paris and tracks down some of the people who helped him. Like its hero, the novel floats between one time and another, between Marshall's memories and his sleuthing decades later. As in Mason's best-known novel, "In Country," the narrative dwells on the effects of war that can be felt long after the fighting is over, but for Marshall the present turns out to have its particular satisfactions. Two women offer themselves as romantic partners: Caroline has "pop-out breasts" and feeds him langoustines; Annette has "ample, well-formed breasts" and makes him a quiche Lorraine. Given these distractions, he spends a surprising amount of time thinking about the astronaut Neil Armstrong and the horrors of the Holocaust. This is the kind of novel in which even a name is an opportunity. So it might not be wholly accidental that Stone is strong and taciturn, that this military man's first name is Marshall. Inside every characterization lurks the possibility of parody. While eating a baguette, a Frenchman called Pierre compares the bombers overhead to "the streaming rows of cloud like breaths on a cold morning." Elsewhere Annette declares: "I never want to miss the full moon. It is one of my principal joys!" These are stereotypical French people who drink Calvados before lunch and eat tarte Tatin after, who wear berets and fall swiftly in and out of love. Here the Germans are barbaric, but they follow the rules; the Americans have big feet and are lovably clumsy. This all sounds cheap and obvious, but it's also, and quite oddly, sincere and well meant. Mason has given us a portrait of a man from a generation whose members were uncertain about the protocols of letting oneself feel. And she has lovingly captured the tone of bluff assertion still shared by veterans of that war. Marshall's banality has the ring of truth; his awkwardness reveals much. Mason never judges. Nothing in the novel's tone or plot steps outside the worldview of Marshall Stone. Its limitations are those of its characters, its weaknesses the price of its fidelity. In her acknowledgements, Mason notes: "This novel was inspired by the World War II experience of my father-in-law, Barney Rawlings (19202004)." "The Girl in the Blue Beret" is a work of remarkable empathy, if not of remarkable creativity. Daniel Swift is the author of "Bomber County: The Poetry of a Lost Pilot's War."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 24, 2011]

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Review by Booklist Review

In the 1980s, 60-year-old widower Marshall Stone is on the verge of retirement from his career as an airline pilot. For years, he has kept the past in the past, but no. something had shaken loose. He has become invested in calling up his WWII experiences, revisiting the site where his B-17 was shot down, his crew forced to land in a muddy field in Belgium. What he remembers most, apart from the sickening crash, are the people who risked their lives to usher him to safety. He was hidden by farmers in the countryside before being taken to Paris, wher. the girl in the blue beret. Annette Vallon, guided him to her family's apartment, where he spent many tense weeks before he was safely sent home. Mason's leisurely pace at the outset in no way prepares readers for the emotionally devastating sections in which Marshall reunites with Annette and learns of the incredible hardships her family faced as a result of their work with the Resistance. Relayed almost entirely in dialogue, these sections convey, in heartbreaking detail, the suffering of the Parisians and the high cost they paid for freedom. In her fifth novel, the talented Mason offers an emotionally powerful story of the ruinous effects of war. . HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Award-winning Bobbie Ann Mason bases her first novel in five years on the war experiences of her father-in-law, lending a personal touch to a novel that will be pitched to book clubs and featured on NPR.--Wilkinson, Joann. Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Mason (In Country) is back with a touching novel about love, loss, war, and memory. Shot down over France during WWII, Marshall Stone takes the controls and lands the plane, helping as many of his surviving airmen to safety as he can. He's saved by the French Resistance and ferried from one safe house to the next until he reaches the U.K. In 1980, after being forced into retirement, he returns to the crash site and vows to find those who helped him. Two in particular stand out in his mind: Robert, the dashing young man who helped plan his escape, and Annette, a school girl who lived in one of the safe houses. Moving between the present and the events he revisits, the novel descends deeper and deeper into memory, profoundly revealing how the past haunts the present. Stone learns that Robert and Annette were both punished for the roles they played in the war, and that memory serves us all differently, saving one while destroying another. Mason's latest, based on the real-life experiences of her father-in-law, is fascinating and intensely intimate. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

It is 1980, and commercial airline pilot Marshall Stone, having just turned 60, has been forced into retirement. A widower with grown children, Marshall heads to France to retrace his World War II experiences there; as a flight engineer, he was shot down over Belgium. Now, Marshall wants to reconnect with the Resistance members involved in his rescue. He remembers a young woman, partial to a blue beret, and Robert, a brave freedom fighter. Finding them will be difficult, as code names and cryptic passwords were used to protect identities. Flashbacks of his days at the English airbase follow Marshall as he searches for his rescuers and the chance to come to terms with his place during a horrific time. Renowned American author Mason (In Country) based this haunting novel on her late father-in-law's wartime experiences, and the rich setting, detail, and intimate character nuances ring true. VERDICT Great crossover appeal for fans of the award-winning author, World War II fiction, and novels with French settings. Highly recommended.-Jenn B. -Stidham, Houston Community Coll.-Northeast, TX (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Mason (Nancy Culpepper, 2006, etc.) may surprise fans of her Appalachian stories with this historical novel about a World War II pilot who returns to France to find the families who helped him survive after his plane was shot down 36 years earlier.In 1980, 60-year-old Marshall Stone is forced to retire as an airline pilot. His wife Loretta, whom he loved but largely took for granted, has died, and he is not close to his grown children. With an empty future looming, he decides to retrace the trail he took after he crash-landed his B-17 bomber in 1944. Marshall was co-pilot, but when the plane was hit on Marshall's 10th mission, he had to take over from the fatally wounded pilot and crash land in a field. Local farmers helped him before the Germans could reach him. A French farm family took him in and then passed him into the care of the resistance. Soon Marshall has reconnected with the Albert familyhis oldest son named Albert in their honorand the Alberts' son Nicolas, now a school principal, offers to help him in his search. Marshall sets himself up in an apartment in Parishe has studied Frenchand begins to look for the Vallon family that hid him in Paris in 1944. He is particularly haunted by memories of the family's teenage daughter Annette and her charismatic friend Robert, a member of the Resistance who led Marshall to safety in Spain. Soon he meets Robert's illegitimate daughter, whose memories of her father are shockingly dark. Then Marshall finds Annette, now a lovely widow, and she fills in the missing piecesshe and Robert fell in love shortly before he and the Vallons were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Robert never recovered from survivor guilt. Marshall and Annette become lovers before they set off to cross the Pyrenees, a trip full of bittersweet memories for Marshall.Like Marshall himself, the novel maintains a reserved, laconic, even pedantic toneoff-putting at times yet often moving.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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9781400067183|excerpt Mason: THE GIRL IN THE BLUE BERET 1. As the long field came into view, marshall stone felt his breathing quicken, a rush of doves flying from his chest. The landscape was surprisingly familiar, its contours and borders fresh in his memory, even though he had been here only fleetingly thirty-six years ago. Lucien Lombard, who had brought him here today, knew the field intimately, for it had been in his family for generations. "It was over there beside that tree, monsieur," Lucien said, pointing toward the center of the field, where an awkward sycamore hovered over a patch of unruly vegetation. "There was no tree then," Marshall said. "That is true." They walked through the furrowed field toward the tree, Lucien's sturdy brown boots mushing the mud, Marshall following in borrowed Wellingtons. He was silent, his memory of the crash landing superimposed on the scene in front of him, as if there were a small movie projector in his mind. The Flying Fortress, the B-17, the heavy bomber the crew called the Dirty Lily, had been returning from a mission to Frankfurt. "The airplane came down just there," said Lucien as they neared the tree. Lucien was elderly--probably in his eighties, Marshall thought--but he had a strong, erect physique, and he walked with a quick, determined step. His hair was thin, nearly white, his face smooth and firm. "Normally a farmer would not permit a tree to thrive in his field," he said. "But this tree marks the site." Unexpectedly, Marshall Stone began to cry. Embarrassed, he turned his face aside. He was a captain of transatlantic jumbo jets, a man who did not show weakness. He was alarmed by his emotion. Lucien Lombard nodded. "I know, monsieur," he said. In Marshall's mind, the crumpled B-17 lay before him in the center of the field. He recalled that the plane had been lined up with the neatly plowed furrows. The deep, rumbling sound of a vast formation of B-17s roared through Marshall's memory now. The steady, violent, rocking flight toward target. The sight of Focke-Wulf 190s--angry hornets darting crazily. The black bursts of flak floating like tumbleweeds strewn on a western highway. The fuselage flak-peppered. Slipping down into the cloud deck, flying for more than an hour unprotected. Over Belgium, hit again. The nose cone shattering. The pilot panicking. Marshall, the co-pilot, took the controls and brought the Dirty Lily down. A belly landing on this foreign soil. There was no time to jettison the ball turret. Only as they were coming down did Marshall see that Lawrence Webb, the pilot, was unconscious. The Fort grazed the top of a tall hedgerow and slid in with a jolt, grinding to a hard stop. The crew scrambled out. Marshall and the flight engineer wrestled Webb's slack body from the plane. The navigator's face was torn, bloodied. The fuselage was burning. Machine-gun rounds were exploding at the gun stations. Marshall didn't see the tail gunner anywhere. The left waist gunner lay on the ground, motionless. Marshall had been just twenty-three years old then. Now he was nearly sixty, and he had come to see this place again at last. He was crying for the kids in the B-17, the youngsters who had staked their lives on their Flying Fortress. He hadn't known he had pent up such a reservoir of emotion, even though he probably thought about the downing of the B-17 every day. He willed his tears to stop. Lucien Lombard had seen the plane come down near the village, and he rushed to help the crew, but Marshall didn't remember him. Now Lucien said, "It is like yesterday." Marshall toed a weed-topped clod of dirt. "The worst day of my life," he said. "Some bad memories." "Never mind, monsieur. It had its part." Several people were crossing the field, headed toward them. They had arrived in a gray van with the name of a hardware store on the side. "Everyone from the village has heard of your visit," said Lucien. "You are a hero." "Non. I did very little." Marshall was ashamed. Lucien introduced him to the group. They were all smiling at him and speaking rapidly. When Marshall could not follow some of their thickly accented French, Lucien explained that everyone there remembered the crash. Three families had sheltered members of the crew, and Dr. Bequet had treated the wounded. "I'm very grateful," Marshall said, shaking the doctor's hand. "It was necessary to help." More introductions and small talk followed. Marshall noticed two men scanning the ground. Lucien explained that people still found pieces of metal there--bullet casings, rivets, and once even a warped propeller blade. Marshall thought of how he had torn up the field when he came zigzagging down that day. A man in a cloth cap and wool scarf stepped forward and touched Marshall's arm. "Oui, it is sad, monsieur," the man said. He regarded Marshall in a kindly way and smiled. His face was leathery but younger than Marshall's. He seemed familiar. "You were the boy who helped me!" Marshall said, astonished. "Oui. C'est moi." "You offered me a cigarette." The man laughed. His taut, weathered cheeks seemed to blush. "Bien sûr. I would never forget that day. The cigarettes I had obtained for my father." "That was my very first Gauloises," Marshall said. "You were my first Américain," the man said, smiling. "I am Henri Lechat." They shook hands, the younger man first removing his glove. "You warned me that the Germans were coming," Marshall said. Henri nodded. "It is true. You had no French then, and I had no English." "But I knew. We communicated somehow." Marshall's voice broke on the word communicated. "We will never forget, monsieur." "You told me to run," Marshall said, recalling how he had stowed the cigarette in the inner pocket of his leather jacket. Now he felt his tears well up again. Henri tugged on his scarf. "I told you to hide in the woods, and you comprehended." Recalling the boy's urgency, Marshall tried to laugh. Henri had raced up, calling a warning. Pointing back the way he had come, he cried, "Les Allemands! Les Allemands!" Then, pointing to the woods in the other direction, he shouted, "Allez-y!" Marshall did not see any Germans, and he would not leave until all the crew was out. The bombardier was wounded in the shoulder, and the navigator had a shattered leg. The tail gunner appeared; he had hopped out easily. The left waist gunner was unconscious and had to be pulled from the fuselage window. Marshall was relieved to see the ball-turret gunner, who was limping toward the church with a man carrying a shovel. Someone said the right waist gunner had parachuted. The pilot was lying on the frozen ground, his eyes closed. Fire was leaping from the plane. Marshall knelt by Webb, trying to wake him. Nothing. Someone squatted beside Marshall and opened Webb's jacket. "Docteur," the woman said, pointing toward the village. She pointed in the opposite direction, toward the woods, and said, "Go." Marshall stood. The flight engineer appeared at his side. "Let's go," he said. "Everybody's out." Several of the villagers were making urgent gestures toward the road. German troops would be here in moments. Marshall knew that they converged on every fallen plane, to arrest the Allied aviators and to salvage the wrecked metal for their own planes. The German fighter that had downed them was circling low overhead. Marshall began running toward the woods. Had the Germans shot anyone from the village for helping the American flyers? Marshall wondered now, but he did not want to ask. He had tried to be sure all the crew were out, and then he left the scene. In the years after, he didn't probe into the aftermath. He lived another life. "We were so thankful to you, monsieur," one of the men was saying. "When your planes flew over we knew we would be liberated one day." Marshall nodded. A stocky woman with gray, thick hair and a genial, wrinkled face said, "The airplanes flying toward Germany in those days--there were hundreds of them. We rejoiced to see them crossing the sky." Henri kicked dirt from his leather boot. "I didn't know at that age everything that was understood by the adults. But I knew the deprivation, the difficulties, the secrecy. Even the children knew the crisis." Cautiously, Marshall asked, "Did the Germans arrest anybody for helping us?" "Oh, non, monsieur." Henri paused. "Not that day." Lucien Lombard clasped Henri's shoulder and said, "The father of this one was killed--shot on his bicycle, on his way home after convoying one of your aviateurs across the border to France." Henri said, "I had to grow up quickly. I had the responsibilities then for my mother and my sisters." Lucien said, "His family hid that aviateur in their barn for a time." Marshall recoiled. He could see the waist gunner lying motionless across the furrows. He saw himself running into the woods. He saw the boy's face. The plane was on fire. Marshall had decided to return to this place finally, knowing it was time to confront his past failure. He had expected to be alone in the field, and he had not thought anyone would remember. The news of the death of the boy's father jolted him. He had never heard about that. In all these years, he had thought little about the people who had come running to the downed airplane. He had felt such a profound defeat in the war that he had not wanted to return here. During the war, more than anything, he had wanted to be heroic. But he was no hero. He had felt nothing but bitter disappointment that he didn't get to complete his bombing missions against Nazi Germany. And what happened later, as he skulked through France, was best forgotten, he had thought. Marshall was a widower. His wife, Loretta, had died suddenly two years before, and the loss still seemed unbelievable, but now he began to feel his grief lift, like the morning fog disappearing above a waiting airport. Excerpted from The Girl in the Blue Beret by Bobbie Ann Mason All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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