Review of A Fifty-Year Silence

Miranda Richmond Mouillot is the author of a beautifully crafted memoir,  which ultimately is a story of the author's self discovery and the preservation of a family's miraculous survival and history.  If one reads with those expectations I do not think she will be disappointed.

Other reviews I read prepared me for the fact that this book is not a historical one about World War 2,  nor does it wrap the story up with a shiny bow at the end with all the questions answered.  It is, however,  a book about two people whose "history had robbed them of their right to be ordinary" and who had "become remarkable in ways they had not chosen."

Miranda's style of writing is romantic and compelling and charming and whimsical.   The details with which she recalls events and characters, down to the way each place and person smelled, almost made me forget that these are real people, not just characters in a novel.   I was sad when I reached the end,  like I was saying goodbye to old friends - a true sign of a well told story.

Miranda really weaves together multiple love stories in this memoir.  She manages to piece together a rough chronology of her grandparents' lives and the relationship between them, Anna and Armand.  Simultaneously she tells about her love affair with history and specially her responsibility of remembering her family's past.   She moves to the little rubble of a house her grandparents bought on a whim and while there,  finds yet another love - a man called Julien, to whom she is now married.  

The book is not about the war,  per se, but it does give a glimpse into what it was like to live in such a time of desperation,  starvation, loss and unknowns. The gaps we are left with in Anna and Armand's story reflect the many gaps they lived with every day:  questions of who lived and who died and the web of paths that crossed for a moment in time,  long enough that these two should survive.  But where were all those people now?   Anna and Armand - their lives were ordinary but they lived through extraordinary circumstances that forever altered them and every relationship thereafter.

Beautifully and thoughtfully written.   I loved every minute of it.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from bloggingforbooks.org in exchange for writing this honest review.