Linda D. Cirino
Eva's Story
Persea Books
1999 (Originally published in the U.K as "The Egg Woman" in 1997)
I really enjoy reading historical novels. History was my least favorite subject until college, when I had some teachers who really made it come alive for me. Still, a novel can teach like no other kind of text, I think, because the proportion of the work to an individual scale brings points home in a way which no other method, in my opinion, is able to approach.
A German farm wife finds a Jewish student, Nathanael, hiding in her chicken coop. Her husband is away, fighting Nazi Germany’s battles, leaving her to tend the farm by herself, without even the help of her teenaged children whose obligations to the Nazi Youth grow more and more time-consuming. She isn’t sure why she does it at first but she tells no one about the presence of the Jewish fugitive. She does not even really understand why he is on the run, only that he seems to be no threat to her.
The matter-of-fact presentation of the main character, and her very appropriate voice, paint a picture of a time which is difficult to comprehend but foretells the difficulties inherent in our current age of information.
In a life of hardship, of caring for a family and a farm which leaves little time and not much inclination for introspection, Eva finds herself thrust into a world where people outside her family circle can saddle her with even more tasks. An organization of "Farm Women" demands her membership, and the State sends representatives to inspect her farm. If she does not participate or demonstrate what is expected of her, she will be monitored more closely and possibly be shunned by members of the community.
As these events unfold, she slowly begins to understand the position of the fugitive, with whom she has come to share a relationship she had never even dreamed could exist. She finds out how difficult life can be when one must make choices.
One could find fault with this book by saying that it is short and limited in scope. I think, though, that in keeping it short, the message it conveys has a lot more power. It's brevity, however, does mean that some elements are not well developed.
I strongly recommend "Eva's Story" to anyone interested in this period of history. While most of us are familiar with events in Germany during the war, this book goes further by shedding light on what seems to be the cusp of agricultural and modern civilization.
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