Back Behind Enemy Lines
It must be said, from the start Back Behind Enemy Lines is not an easy book to read – nor should it be, seeing as it is the story of a stunted life, the result of the emotionally crippling events the protagonist experienced as a young female spy during WWII.
In the early months of 1944, Anna is parachuted into France, where she is to live under the name of Marie-Claire while gathering information about German troops and positions in the area. Excellent descriptive writing brings to life the ever-present tension and fear she lives under, further exacerbated by her constant loneliness.
The story is told both in the POV of Marie-Claire, and the reminiscent POV of Anna, looking back at the events of those months from a distance of sixty years. It is skilfully done, allowing the present day Anna to add depth and introspection to the climactic events of the summer of 1944. Anna never recovers from her wartime experiences. She lives under a burden of guilt: guilt for not being able to relate to her children, guilt for not loving her husband, but most of all guilt for the choice she made one summer night in 1944. She is plagued by doubt, by an internalised grief that has her walking about in an emotional vacuum for the rest of her life.
In the second half of the book, Anna is old, she is tired – and fighting a battle of wits against her children, who want her out of the house so that they can sell it and take the money. And so, Anna is back behind the enemy lines – but this time the enemies are her own flesh and blood
Back Behind Enemy Lines is beautifully written. This is an author who excels at hinting at the unsaid, allowing the reader to fill in the blanks, whose contained and precise prose marches across the pages, now and then flowering into exquisite metaphors, at times bursting apart to reveal the oceans of unhealed pain that lies deep within Anna.
Ultimately, Anna comes face to face with her past. Whether she is capable of forgiving herself for the choices she made, I leave for readers to find out for themselves.
E-edition reviewed
