Fiction: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

 I just finished the incredible novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer. After becoming quite taken with 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, I was drawn to the idea of a novel in which the reader is taken into the heart of the matter quite of their own accord, through the correspondence that pass between various characters.

This format is not new, of course, epistolary novel form having been around for a long time and having many fans of the genre. As a young reader I was enchanted with Beverly Cleary's novel "Dear Mr. Henshaw". My interest in epistolary novels kept tumbling forth into other texts, most noteably, Bram Stoker's "Dracula", "The Colour Purple" by Alice Walker, "Griffin and Sabine" by artist Nick Bantock and, one of the most striking books I have read, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver.

I think that part of the facination with the genre is the work the reader must do to fill in the details that letters and other correspondence do not include. Typically setting is not drilled in and perception is very fluid. I can see that some people might balk at having to do much more considering and fill in background information or work harder to see the connections that may not be as explicitly stated, however, I feel that same lack of specificity gives me room as a reader to grow in my interpretation, to allow for some maturity in understanding and perhaps, over time allow me to return to the text more often with new eyes and fresh perspectives.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society is at once a humourous and touching story--a tale of the horrors of war, of the unfairness of labelling, of humanity's incompatibility with set ideology, of the boundlessness of love.

Without feeling overly saccharine (although it has its moments), the letters and telegrams moved me and held me, causing me to mourn for lost opportunities, cheer for chance encounters and celebrate character triumphs.

Perhaps it was the culmination of collaboration that creates the unique and familiar voices in the letters from the Island, but I found myself so charmed by those few letters that really spoke in true character voices; So real, in fact, that I imagined reaching out for pen and paper that I might also write to them and recieve a charming response of my own.

So enchanted has the general public been with this text that the publisher has set up a website especially for it, which can be found here: http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/guernsey/

I felt somewhat torn that I could not continue with the characters after the text was done, wanted to read the text that was discussed throughout and feel that creating such a strong connection between real life readers and fictional characters is the hallmark of a wonderfully talented fiction writer.