Wow!

I use the words beautiful and sad often when describing my reads. Those words truly apply in describing [We Must Be Brave] as well. There is so much to learn from this novel about the World War II. About the people of Upton proactively and vigorously doing the right thing; working hard to rescue and help people, many sacrificing their lives in the horrors on the war stage. Suffering life-changing injuries, doing without basic necessities. We learn about the true meaning of responsibility and love. Ellen Parr, her mother and brother know all about sacrifice, hunger, and shame. As she grows up she also witnesses and feels the steadfastness and love from her friend Lucy, from the very supportive townspeople, and especially from William Kennet, gardner and craftsman extraordinaire. Upton is a town of the best people.

Ellen is one of the best of Upton as well. She works hard to become independent. Makes a good and happy life for herself. Marries Selwyn Parr and becomes an integral part of Upton using her vitality to contribute and do whatever it takes to help her friends and neighbors.

She rescues Pamela and feels the strongest bond of love while caring for her. But hardship is not finished with Ellen; life has heart-breaking plans for her, Selwyn and Pamela. Doesn't stop Ellen from feeling, always helping and living a full life.

The writing, timing, characters, dialog, plot and the settings alll make this an excellent read.

4 stars for the story. It was long drawn out but the idea was worth the many words. ( )

Gave up. ( )

When German bombs fall on Southampton, England, in December 1940, the stream of homeless refugees reaching Upton, fifteen miles away, includes a six-year-old girl. According to the tag on her clothes, she’s Pamela Pickering, but no one accompanies her or shepherds her to Upton. It seems a couple women told her to get on a particular bus, or maybe it was her mother.

But circumstances don’t immediately matter, for little Pamela has nowhere to go and, as you might expect, is very upset. Consequently, young Ellen Parr, recently married to the much older owner of the local grain mill, takes the child in, along with other evacuees. For the moment.

You need not be clairvoyant to imagine how long that moment will stretch. Ellen’s attempts to trace Pamela’s surviving kin come to nothing, except to learn that the child’s mother died in an air raid, and her father hasn’t been in the picture for a while. Ellen’s husband, Selwyn, tries a little harder to find Pamela’s family; he doesn’t want the girl to remain, even after the other people they’re sheltering leave.

But he’s the soul of kindness, and he can’t help notice how attached Ellen has become to Pamela. He’s also keenly aware that he’s nearly twice Ellen’s age, and since the previous war left him impotent because of shell shock, she won’t have a child any other way. Nevertheless, you still need no crystal ball to guess that Pamela’s a borrowed child.

Like Selwyn, We Must Be Brave is kind and gentle despite the trying, bloody times, a reminder that war often brings out the best in people, not just the worst. The theme is rescue, what it means and how it works in two directions, for the motherless Pamela rescues Ellen too. To Liardet’s credit, she makes Pamela a difficult, if rewarding, charge — willful, disobedient, mercurial, capable of selfishness, yet passionate, resilient, and creative, the sort of child adults love to learn from. Ellen, though unsure of herself as a mother, understands right away that parenting is the art of the possible.

I like Liardet’s prose too, which, without attracting attention, conveys Ellen as a keen observer. This is warm, practical writing, like the narrator herself.

However, two aspects of We Must Be Brave trouble me. The first is Selwyn. I don’t understand why Ellen marries him; he seems more like a kindly, older brother, occasionally paternal, than a husband. Moreover, without a second thought, the night of Pamela’s arrival, Ellen places her in the marital bed — perhaps not surprising, but she keeps doing so. Maybe that persistence doesn’t surprise, either, but Selwyn has no reaction. That’s peculiar.

His sexual incapability resulting from the war — a trope, there — would make objections more difficult to lodge, yet he should have feelings about the interloper, I think. Is Ellen afraid of or repelled by sex? Not clear, so it’s hard to say whether she’s just not interested. The narrative suggests that, but for the war, the newlyweds would have happily led a childless life, traveling often, unencumbered. But exactly where her feelings lie never comes through, except when, years later, a friend makes a tactless, if accurate, remark about him.

Perhaps to explain Ellen’s attraction to Selwyn, the narrative backtracks to her excruciating childhood with a snobbish mother, a deadbeat father who falls into financial ruin and abandons them, and the grinding poverty that follows. That’s problem number two. I get that Selwyn’s kindness and stability offer Ellen what she lacked, and her hand-to-mouth existence then, told in unsparing detail, hits home. But that section, rather too long by half, still doesn’t persuade me about Selwyn — or at least, Ellen might entertain regrets, now and then — and slows the narrative.

In a novel like this, endgame matters perhaps more than in most, and though I get uncomfortable when the story wanders too close to modern times — not my taste —Liardet brings her narrative to a satisfying conclusion. We Must Be Brave is one of those novels that will speak to you after you’ve finished it. ( )

Good, but I didn't like this one nearly as much as some of the other WWII historical fiction I've read. At one point, I was very interested in the story surrounding Pamela, the child Ellan finds and essentially adopts, but the central pieces of her story are revealed a little too early in the novel and makes for a long, drawn-out conclusion. ( )