The Girl in the Blue Beret

by Bobbie Ann Mason

Inspired by a true story, the bestselling author of In Country offers a gorgeous, haunting novel about an airline pilot coming to terms with his past, and searching for the people who saved him during World War II. After Marshall Stone's B-17 bomber was shot down in occupied Europe in 1944, people in the French Resistance helped him escape to safety. One of the brave French people who risked their lives for him was a lively girl in Paris-a girl identified by her blue beret. After the war Marshall returned to America, raised a family, and became a successful airline pilot. He tried to forget the war. Now, in 1980, he returns to France and finds himself drawn back in time-memories of the crash, the terror of being alone in a foreign country where German soldiers were hunting down fallen Allied aviators, the long months of hiding. Marshall finds the people who helped him escape from the Nazis and falls in love with the woman who was the girl in the blue beret. He also discovers astonishing revelations about the suffering of the people he had known during the war. Bobbie Ann Mason's novel, inspired by her father-in-law's wartime experiences, is a beautifully woven story of love, war, and second chances.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, World War II, France, Historical, Book Club, Audiobook

9 pages, Audio CD

First published June 28, 2011

About the author

Bobbie Ann Mason has won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her books include In Country and Feather Crowns. She lives in Kentucky.

Reviews

[Mandolin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Forced into retirement by his beloved airline, Marshall Stone has lost his purpose in life. His thoughts turn to long suppressed memories of World War II and his experiences after crashing a plane behind enemy lines. He remembers with gratitude the people who aided his escape from the Nazis and decides to retrace his steps through Belgium and France. According to the Amazon.com review, "Marshall’s search becomes a wrenching odyssey of discovery that threatens to break his heart—and also sets him on a new course for the rest of his life. In his journey, he finds astonishing revelations about the people he knew during the war—none more electrifying and inspiring than the story of the girl in the blue beret."


To be honest, I am forced to wonder if I'm the only reader who feels like the reviews are exaggerated praise for a humdrum work by well-established author. The writing is choppy and, though it tries to be emotionally evocative, never quite reaches the point of touching this reader's heart. Marshall is a very unsympathetic "hero." Self-absorbed and almost egotistic, he dully recounts his lackluster relationships with his now-deceased wife and children while obsessing over memories of women he encountered (and slept with) only briefly during the war. I tried to forgive his failings and write them off as realism, but his personality is otherwise as lackluster as his relationships and I just couldn't bring myself to get drawn into his story. His recollections of his past are as drably recounted as the rest of his narrative. Sad to say, I worked hard to like the novel, but I have failed miserably and am returning it to the library unfinished.

[Eilene · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this book had an interesting premise. I think the French Resistance is a fascinating time in history, especially the role women played in the exploits--however, while I'm sure very factual, this book did not do it justice. There was a lot of people relaying what happened, instead of putting the reader in the moment. So, in the words of my creative writing professor, all tell, no show.

Which was a real shame, because this story had potential. Marshall is the main character, a veteran aviator who was shot down in over France during World War II. A group of resistance help smuggle him out of France, over the Pyrenees, and back to the Allies. Years later, when his wife is dead and he is retired from his job as an Airline pilot, he returns to France to retrace his journey and find the people who helped him. Journey of discovery, blah blah blah.

Marshall is kind of a dick. The story is told form his point of view, and the more we learn about him, the more we don't like him. He's pretty proud of his career as a pilot, and he is one of those people who think that it's okay to cheat on your wife with flight attendants while on the job, but it's not okay to wear jeans on airplanes. He has a condescending, patronizing view of his wife and her experiences, which of course, can't come close to the depth and meaning of his own.

Anyway, he goes to France and traces his path, finding the fates of those who helped him along the way. He meets the titular girl with the blue beret, and the predictable occurs, including the timely emotional confession of time spent in a Concentration Camp, which is presented as vaguely shameful, for reasons I don't quite understand.

I have beef with that. It seems like every writer who wants his or her book to be discussed by middle aged women everywhere will throw in a concentration camp experience. I understand that concentration camp is the best short-hand for ultimate evil that we currently have, but I also think that shows a stunning failure of imagination, and a strange sort of disrespect to the horror of the experience. It's also enough of a cultural trope--we all can describe, or have a rudimentary understanding, of how that worked--at least the incidentals, the external trappings. I'm not suggesting that we have the sort of intimate understanding of the absolute horror of that experience, in fact, that is the issue. Such mediocre writers taking aim at such a difficult, painful topic--and failing--provides a great misunderstanding to those who read the work and think it somehow gives insight into that experience. It doesn't, and I can't help but think that is dangerous in some way, certainly disrespectful.

Which leads me to my proposal: I feel like to discuss the Holocaust in a novel, you have to show some literary talent. Some distinguishable literary talent--perhaps have a resume that includes several awards, or be signed off on by members of the literary community who will vouch for your ability to handle such a weighty topic. I can see that as a slippery slope--soon, there will be very few topics bad writers could write about--oh wait, would that be so terrible?

If I were to diagnose the problem, it would be the way the story was told. In this case, the author should've stuck with a simple back and forth, ping-pong style narration. Past to the present, instead of the crazy bouncing around within chapters she tries to pull off. She isn't a talented enough writer for that. Or her editors weren't good enough to make it work.

The other beef I had: Marshall's experiences in the war are a big part of why he is such a dick, at least they are presented that way. He cheats on his wife because she can't understand what he went through. The girl with the blue beret was also married, and she is a widow now, and she went through something way worse, but it is not used as a crutch in that way. She sucked it up, got on with it, got married had kids and was a decent human being. So why does Marshall get a free pass?

So if it's not clear, I was not a big fan of this book. Definitely blah-blah-blah, using weighty historic times for dubious literary purposes.

[Jo Anne B · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like the main character Marshall and could not relate to his aviation career or involvement in war. The writing was good and that is what kept me interested plus I wanted to know what was so special about the girl in the blue beret.

Marshall's wife was dead and at the age of 60 he was retiring from flying. Flying was his passion and his life so he felt "like a caged bird." He left his adult children in charge of watching the house while he left for France to hopefully meet up with people who helped hide him during the war. "He had tried to put the war behind him, but sometimes it surfaced. Over the years he thought from time to time about the girl in the blue beret and wondered what happened to her." I can't even imagine how traumatic war is to a person let alone being captured by the Germans and held prisoner. Marshall was very brave and courageous and was considered a hero. He felt extremely guilty for being the pilot of a plane that went down causing the death of many people but it wasn't his fault. He is a deeply emotional person and I doubt his wife or children got to see that side of him. "It occurred to him that his marriage had been...two people agreeing not to reveal the worst of themselves, being strong for each other." As a young boy, his son aked him if he had a double life with a family in another country. "He rationalized infidelities to Lorertta by telling himself that his sporadic overseas flings were an alternate reality." Even "At Loretta's funeral all the flowers made him remember Penny, and he wept." What kind of person does that? When he was at home he would escape to the den to be alone. It felt to me, war or not, he was a selfish man, keeping his distance from the poeple that loved him only he couldn't return the same to them. Why did he even settle down in the U.S. and have a family just to leave them bereft?

So he returns to France rekindling old relationships that meant more to him than his own family. He thought "I can start life over" and the only explanation he gave his children was "You know me. My bag is always packed." He dreaded the thought of ever returning home. Might he not owe them a bit of the truth?

Well Marshall finds his "better self and better half". Well, hoorah for him. He should have done that long ago before he started a family in which he didn't want to give himself to. I am left feeling sorry for his two children on missing out on having a father that was present for them in all the ways a father should be. I guess they should have worn short skirts and a blue beret to get his attention. Shame on him.

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would have been better had it been solely about Annette's experiences during WWII. I liked her, she was a fascinating character. She was spunky and brave and feisty and terrified, and always remembered to treasure her humanity.

Compare that to Marshall, who spent most of the book whining about how nobody in France wanted to talk to him about the war, which was probably an amazingly traumatic period for most of them. I didn't like Marshall, clearly. I respect that the author tried to make a flawed, likable character, but I think she only got half the equation right. I don't like that Marshall was sort of surprised about how sad his trip down memory lane was. I thought he was incredibly selfish and narrow-minded. His reaction to Annette and Robert was immature and uncalled for, especially considering that he viewed Robert as a hero for most of the book. It's human nature to have irrational pangs of jealousy and whatnot, but my goodness Marshall, don't bite Annette's head off every time she talks about Robert, especially since YOU stirred up the memories. I kept feeling sorry for Loretta, who I think got the worst part of this whole deal. I wouldn't want to be married to this guy.

Bottom line: We need a book written solely from Annette's pov.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bobbie Ann Mason has long been considered one of the finest writers of regional fiction — Kentucky is her home and inspiration — but her affecting new novel takes place in France, and she’s just as comfortable and insightful there. Based on the experiences of her late father-in-law, “The Girl in the Blue Beret” describes the tense adventures of a U.S. airman shot down over Nazi-occupied Europe in 1944. What distinguishes the novel, though, is how tenderly Mason nests that World War II escape within the story of an airline pilot forced to retire in 1980.

After decades of flying jumbo jets, Marshall Stone finds himself widowed, grounded and unemployed, a stark break that blows him back to consider the crash landing of his B-17 bomber that effectively ended his military career when he was just 23. “In the years after,” Mason writes, “he didn’t probe into the aftermath. He lived another life.” But when airline regulations and his wife’s death bring that long domestic chapter to a close, Marshall decides to visit the scarred field in Belgium and “confront his past failure,” back when he was a young lieutenant with a clear and noble purpose. What follows is the profound story of an emotionally aloof retiree who must finally learn to stop flying above everything and embrace the people on the ground who saved his life.

But this is as much a historical search as a psychological one, and Mason has drawn the details of her downed airman’s ordeal from a range of published histories and interviews, helpfully listed in the back. As an airman behind enemy lines before the D-Day assault, Marshall was entirely at the mercy of civilians who could betray him for a handsome reward or shelter him at risk to their own lives. And everything about him confessed his Americanness: He was too tall, his accent was laughable, he held his cigarettes wrong, and his boots left a little stencil wherever he walked: “USA.” Alternately bored and terrified, he was hidden away in cupboards by sympathetic mothers and shuffled along to Spain by members of the Resistance, passed like a deadly, precious package through the homes of people he could never properly thank or even fully appreciate.

Mason, who won the PEN/Hemingway Award for her first collection of stories in 1983, devotes much of this novel to Marshall’s search for those brave patriots who helped him. The records are obscured by time and disorganized by an impenetrable layer of old code names. “He was wandering through a land of ghosts,” Mason writes, “slivers of memory, clues floating like summer midges.”

What’s more, so much history has fallen down the space between survivors who don’t wish to remember that horror and young people who don’t care about it. Those crumbling records slow Marshall’s progress considerably, and they affect the novel’s pacing, too, producing a story that’s luxuriously contemplative, sustained by the depth of Mason’s sympathy for this old flier. What does it really mean to be a hero? Marshall wonders, contrasting his own panicked behavior after the crash with the actions of those who escorted him right past German guards on the streets of Paris.

And what a stirring tribute to the Resistance this novel is, along with a heartfelt salute to the ordinary women and even girls who sprinkled sand in the gears of Hitler’s army, fighting back in innumerable subtle ways against the Occupation. As Marshall continues his search, he talks with teachers who sheltered parachutists who dropped in the schoolyard, teenagers who smooched with Yanks to throw off street guards, and mothers who sewed Parisian disguises and printed fake ID papers — all for young soldiers who had little sense of the risks their hosts were taking.

Mason’s most elegant move is the way she interlaces Marshall’s patient search for those who helped him with adrenaline-filled reenactments of the plane crash, his escape from German soldiers and then those weeks of hiding. These are exciting scenes, told first in shattering snippets that eventually coalesce as Marshall recalls more and more of what happened to him. It’s a masterly technique that re-creates the creaky workings of memory along with the frightening adventure of a razor-thin escape.

Significantly, the most harrowing moments of this novel belong not to Marshall but to those French women who helped him and paid for their bravery with time in German work camps. Mason honors those victims with a clear-eyed, starkly personal portrayal of what they endured even beyond the brutal labor: systematic rape, infanticide, death marches and shootings. “It’s only becoming real to me now,” Marshall says, and many readers are likely to feel the same way about this lesser-known facet of the Nazi program.

Such arresting, gory history is easy to overplay, of course — what the critic Melvin Bukiet once dismissed as Holocaust porn. But Mason is far more interested in the grace and resilience of these prisoners than in the cruelty of their tormentors. “There was so little food,” one survivor tells Marshall, “that to save your life you had to steal; to save your humanity you had to share.” In the act of returning to those courageous women and conveying his long-delayed gratitude, Marshall discovers the depth of his own humanity, too.

Mason’s fans know that she has addressed the lingering effects of war before. Her first novel, “In Country” from 1985, dealt with the shadow of Vietnam. (A movie version starring Bruce Willis and Emily Lloyd appeared a few years later.) World War II was a very different kind of war, of course, with cleaner motives and a far more definite conclusion. But once again, Mason has plumbed the moral dimensions of national conflict in the lives of individual participants and produced a deeply moving, relevant novel.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/20...

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise is a good one - a retired airline pilot who, as a WWII aviator had landed a B17 in occupied France and had been rescued by the French Resistance has returned to France to reconnect with some of the French citizens who had sheltered him and safely gotten him back to England. The problem is with the character development, or lack thereof. Despite spending at least half of the book relating the thoughts of the protagonist, the author has failed to create the man. I still do not have a clear picture of Marshall Stone, nor do I care about him. Secondary characters are promisingly introduced and then abandoned and when I finished the book, I had a sense of many loose ends. The author would do well to heed the advice of most creative writing instructors - "Show, don't tell"

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit fluffy not my typical historical fiction
Good for those readers who like a love story along with a light smattering of facts

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are lots of novels about WWII from lots of viewpoints. I was engrossed with this book because it took the seldom explored viewpoint of the airmen who were shot down in Nazi occupied Europe. During the course of the story you also get the story of a band of French Resistance that fought back by hiding and moving these downed airmen at great risk to themselves. This is a fictional story based on the true events in the life of the authors father-in-law. The ghosts of the main character, Marshall Stone became so real in my mind due to the storytelling talents of this author. I have read a book of short stories by the same author, and was drawn to her first because a lot of her work is about her home and my adopted home, Kentucky. She is a writer who can bring stories to life, and make a sad story such as this enjoyable to read.

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marshall Stone is turning 60 and his life is in a state of upheaval. Forced to retire from being a pilot, a job he loves, he is also still dealing with the loss of his wife. With his two children grown, he feels that this is the time to return to the place where his B-17 crash-landed during World War II. He is particularly motivated to find some of the brave individuals who helped him along the way.

When I heard of this book, I was very excited to read it. I love historical fiction, particularly books set during WWII. I also was intrigued by the fact that the author, Bobbie Ann Mason, had been inspired by the experiences of her late father-in-law. Like the main character of the book, he too was a pilot that was shot down in occupied Europe.

The potential negatives of the book:
It took quite awhile for the book to really capture my interest. I was probably at least 100 pages invested before the story took hold for me and I was unwilling to set it aside.

The definite positives of the book:
This is a moving story that captures the bravery of ordinary people who were part of the French Resistance during the war. It is also a story of starting over and of second chances.

Review first posted on http://pagesofgold.blogspot.com

[Rick Bylina · Rating 4 out of 5]

History buffs looking for insights into the resistance and readers of literary fiction who like to read about protagonists searching for their emotional centerpiece will enjoy Bobbie Ann Mason's novel "The Girl in the Blue Beret". Ms. Mason spent considerable time and energy trying to bring alive the stepping-on-egg-shells existence of those who helped the allies in a time when resources were scarce, but courage abundant. She did a fine job though the on-page tension lags at times. Marshall peels back time, revealing his past as he meanders through his present. He searches for post-retirement meaning and a measure of understanding about what he and those who risked their lives to save him went through to save him as a downed pilot in WW2. And at the center of his searching is the girl in the blue beret. I could fall in love with her. While I appreciated the back-and-forth of time and space, it sometimes felt abrupt, as did the ending. I even turned the page thinking there was more, sadly, there was not. This is a solid and enjoyable read.

[Kellie Palmer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't even finish it. I was bored. It also didn't really follow a clear time line, so I was confused when certain events occurred.

[Brandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I finished this last night and gave it a 4 but I think 3.5 is more appropriate. It started out… not just slow but stale? I struggled to get to the 20% mark and then set it aside for two days and read something else. It probably didn’t help that I was reading this because of the StoryGraph Reads the World challenge; it wasn’t something I’d seen and was super interested in on my own.

It’s 1980 and Marshall is WWII vet and freshly retired commercial pilot; he’s just turned 60 and that’s the forced retirement age. He also just lost his wife of close to 40 years. And he can’t help but think about the people who helped him back during the war after his plane went down and the Germans were after him. He goes to the Belgium field where he set the plane down, and meets some of the people who were on site after the crash, who helped him and his flight crew. And he’s shocked to see how much it means to these people, who still think about it and talk about it 36 years later. He feels bad because he didn’t think of them much over the years. He didn’t know one of the men was shot for helping.

From that field, back to New Jersey, and onto Paris he begins tracking down the people who’ve stuck out in his memory from that time when he was on the run and being smuggled to Spain to get back to England. At first, Marshall is a real… selfish prick. He’s cheated on his wife since before they were even married. He barely knows his now-adult children. Nearly every family memory he looks back on, he was in a rush to get back in a plane and leave his wife to handle shit. He felt sorry for himself for not flying in enough missions, for crashing the plane after they took fire. But, as he stumbles along and re-meets these people from his past, and learns how much they hold onto that time, how proud they are for what they did to help, he starts to view things differently. He exhibits real growth, and I felt proud of him by the end.

He never finds the one man he so desperately wanted to, but he finds the girl in the blue beret, and it looks as though this may turn out well for each of them since they’ve both lost their spouses. He learns some of the people he knew were sent to the camps, were executed, all while he was feeling sorry for himself. I never truly liked Marshall, but I did appreciate his growth and empathy. That final story, the ending, that’s what gave me the 4, but while I thought about the book throughout today I realized I was going off of those emotions, and not remembering how I had to slog through the beginning when I didn’t want to. I’m glad I read it, though I don’t think it should count as a Belgium book since we spend most of our time in France, but it isn’t something I’d revisit again. To be fair I’ll find a book that actually spends its duration in Belgium.

[Eadle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I anticipated, given the author. Perhaps told in first person, it would have been easier to connect with Marshall, the protagonist. This would also be better read than listened to. The narrator wasn’t bad, just lackluster, and thus made Marshall lackluster too. Reading would also have allowed me to appreciate the high points in Mason’s language. I haven’t lost faith in her! This one just doesn’t shine like we know she can.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars will represent my opinion better than just three stars. We listened to the novel on CD in the car and the somewhat breathless reading of the actor seemed over-the-top and has affected my rating. The story of a WWII aviator whose plane was shot down over Belgium and who was aided by the Resistance to at last return to England is based on the real life experiences of Mason's father-in-law. Mason researched the time very carefully and in my opinion tried to insert far too many historical facts into her basic story-line. Marshall, the downed pilot, returns to Belgium and then France after his retirement at age 60 from a career as an airline pilot and succeeds in locating Annette, the girl in the blue beret and member of the resistance who'd helped him in 1944. Their falling in love happens as she whispers terrible secrets to him, secrets she'd never told anyone else, not even her husband. "You don't have to talk about it," says Marshall. "Mais oui, I want to," says Annette, and so begins another chapter of carefully researched detail. Only so much can happen to one person, and that much can be terrible indeed, but in her desire to tell the complete fory of the resistance, Annette's confessions go on a bit too long, and Mason has Annette take Marshall to visit a friend who has more terrible events to relate. While on his travels, Marshall remembers more and more of the suffering of his crew, especially that of his friend Hootie, believed dead at the crash, found alive, who in crossing the Pyrenees experiences his actual death while walking/climbing just behind Marshall. A second crossing of the Pyrenees, Marshall this time accompanied by the eager Annette, who urges him on though he has no stomach for the trip, provides the presumed hopeful conclusion, though Annette's confessed affair with Robert, another Resistance worker Marshall has attempted to locate, leaves the reader confused. "What???? That's it?" to quote my husband, who'd enjoyed the reading.

[Steve Lindahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Girl in the Blue Beret by Bobbie Ann Mason is the story of a World War II vet who returns to France to find the people who helped him when his plane was shot down. It's the story of an aspect of the French resistance I knew little about prior to reading this book.

I found it interesting that many women who have reviewed The Girl in the Blue Beret, were put off by Marshall Stone, the main character, by the way he seemed to move on quickly after the death of his wife. His lack of mourning disrespected her memory. I read another book recently where the same situation occurred with the gender roles reversed. I reacted to that story more than this one. I suppose it is because I could identify with the man who died prior to the beginning of Turkmen Captives by Susan Williamson more than I could identify with Lorretta in Mason's work. A reader brings his or her own perspective to a novel, which is why a book can be very different for different people.

Marshall is cold in the beginning, but I give him points for recognizing his flaws. In one section he says the downing of his plane in occupied France was the worst day of his life, then feels guilty that he relegated the death of his wife to the second worst day. I also believe he opened up as the emotions from the rediscovered war memories got to him. Characters in a good novel change along the journey and Marshall certainly did.

There's an unusual distance in this book that works well, given the subject matter. The vast majority of the story is told in the characters' dialog, as they reflect on their experiences, so it is a second hand story. Although “show don't tell” is a good axiom for beginning writers, experienced writers generally use what is appropriate for what they are trying to accomplish. Bobbie Ann Mason decided to “tell” this book and I think her choice works.

This is a good book for people who like historical fiction in a World War II setting.

Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions

[Megan]

--FirstReads Giveaway--

Okay, two important points: I received this book via a Goodreads giveaway ages ago. Like, several years ago. When I received it, I was thrilled: the title was evocative and the description seemed promising. I love me some historical romance, so I had a lot of high hopes about 'The Girl in the Blue Beret.'

Unfortunately, I was so put off by Mason's writing style that I could not get past the first 100 pages. I didn't finish it, and though I hope to one day tackle it again, I'm not sure that will ever happen. With that in mind, I decided to finally bite the bullet and give my long-ago-promised review.

From what I remember, I had extreme difficulty in connecting to the narrator and MC. He was an unlikable grouch who groused about everyone around him, including his children, and I found myself entirely uninterested in what he had to say. Maybe his transformation from the beginning to the end of the novel is a triumphant or redeeming one, I don't know; I just didn't care to find out. The writing style was the next sore point for me. It was really obvious to me that the author had done a lot of research about flying planes, particularly war planes (more than I know, obviously, since I'm calling them 'war planes'), but the descriptions of flying became tiresome fast. It read like the recitation of research, not the immersion into a character whose passion was flying.

Anyway, that's all I remember of this book at this time, without having the novel in front of me. A more complete review will come if I ever return to the book.

[Deborah Robson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing use of family history as the basis for a novel, and very interesting in its perspective on the French resistance movement. I enjoyed reading it and found it useful as a book to read in small sections before bed: sufficiently compelling without demanding that I continue. It's difficult to balance careful research (which this work appears to have in abundance) with the emotional dynamics of storytelling. In this case, the narrative feels like a deftly built container to hold an understanding of an era and several types of people who inhabited that time.

I didn't have the problems with disjointedness that other readers did, and although I did look for a page beyond the ending I also found that the closure was satisfying in that it sidestepped cliché.

The dialogue, which others have felt was stilted, reflects the locutions of French rendered in English. I never quite decided what I thought of the technique. It didn't annoy me, but it never felt completely natural and I think it also reinforced a sense of emotional distance.

I am glad that I read it. If a book doesn't meet basic, stringent criteria, I don't finish it. The fact that The Girl in the Blue Beret passed that test is significant.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A recently retired pilot, Marshall, waxes eloquent on the thrills and joys of flying and is also quick to point out that he visited his family and that his now deceased wife held down the fort. Not one for taking things in stride, Marshall recalls the crash landing he had in WWII and those who helped to save him. While on the trail of those he could remember, he recalls details of that time and it changes him, for the better. The author based her story on the stories her father-in-law told about his experiences in WWII.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked that this story is based on the real life experiences of the author's father-in-law. I also liked the idea of an American airman rescued by members of the French Resistance and helped back to safety via the Pyrenees Mountains decided to go back 40 years later and find out what happened to those brave individual who risked their lives to save him. The story is well constructed and engaging.

[Chrysta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book about an aviator from WWII going back and visiting with the families who saved his life when his plane crashed. It was wonderful to have the history as well as the present time frame of the 80’s. I enjoyed not only his personal perspective but those of the families who saved him and his friends. Only downside was an abrupt ending. But still an amazing WWII book!

[Cindy Hollenberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

A ho-hum story of a WW II pilot shot down over occupied France. The pilot goes back and relives his journey, meetingvthe people who helped him escape. He learns about the sacrifices they made for him. Ending was weird-like it just stopped.

[Paul Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

On his retirement from commercial aviation, former WWII bomber pilot Marshall Stone visits France in search of some of the people in the French Resistance who, after he crash-landed his B-17 in 1944, helped him avoid the Nazis and escape eventually to England. The girl of the title was, during the war, among a number of schoolgirls who, typically unsuspected by the occupying Germans, helped guide stranded American aviators to hiding places and workable routes out of France.

Immediately after the war, Marshall, like so many American veterans of WWII, returns to a comfortable, if largely staid and uninteresting, life in the States, marrying the sweetheart he left behind, having children, doing the well-paying work he loves as an airline pilot. Marshall likes to see the territory from thirty thousand feet, a long and in some ways rather undemanding orientation to the world. He does what he's supposed to do, and other than a very minimal correspondence just after the war with one man in the French Resistance, he neglects to keep in touch with those who probably saved his life after the B-17 crash.

In France immediately after his retirement (and, significantly, the death of his wife two years earlier), Marshall begins a journey that changes him, and begins to wake some of the sleeping elements of his experience and his inner life. The abstractions of seeing land from aloft fade when he drives and walks in the mountains, seeing lofty places from an intimate and possibly even dangerously close perspective. It dawns on him that he's missed some things.

Marshall's search for certain people--families that first hid him, a trio of black-clad older women he recalls in one house where he was sheltered, a seemingly adventurous and jubilant young man named Robert, and Annette, the girl identified with the blue beret, goes slowly at first. It seems that many of the French also would prefer to forget the war and the German occupation of their beloved country. But eventually doors are opened, some of the people are located, and some of the people open up.

Forgetting has worked for many, both French and American. And yet when some of the characters are offered chances to purge the pain and integrate it into their lives, they become larger, and the sadness perhaps becomes smaller in its deadening influence. Some kind of inner split in the psyche is healed.

In one striking passage, Annette, now the widow of a veterinarian, reflects on the levels of depravity to which humans can sink. She rejects the notion that they can become "animals," because that's far too insulting to animals. Animals, Annette tells Marshall, "do not betray their nature. They do not practice self-deceptions. Humans have a great capacity for the diabolical." I immediately thought of the passage in Whitman's "Song of Myself" that praises animal nature: " . . . they are so placid and self-contain'd, . . .Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things . . . . Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.”

Well, we're not like that, we homo sapiens, the "paragon of animals"--we're capable of the most unspeakable cruelty, utter inhumanity to our fellow creatures (human and non-human), and using power to crush others we regard as being in our way. At the same time, our behavioral range has a very long continuum. What's celebrated mostly in Bobbie Ann Mason's novel is our capacity to also be selfless, heroic, and utterly resolute in opposition to powerful evil. So we find our humanity in frank acknowledgement of what we may be, and in the choices we make.

Marshall undergoes an awakening in his meetings with these figures from a past that has never really left him. Annette, a character of depth and beauty, appears again, all these decades later, and plays a role in saving something significant that was lost in Marshall's life. She even offers him an opportunity to provide her with something restorative--she has buried pain of her own. The long encounter between these two is an offering out of love, made richer by both the vulnerability and determination needed for their later-life healing.

The Girl in the Blue Beret moves at a modest pace in opening chapters, and with the intensification of Marshall's deepening dive into the world and his own life, the momentum gathers. The rhythm of the narrative joins the reader to the search. The novel is well-crafted, the story moving and powerful.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book free from Goodreads First Reads.

I'd like to give this book four stars, I really would, but I just can't bring myself to do it. The subject matter is superb-- an American WW II pilot, upon retirement, comes back to France to find the people who bravely hid him and then smuggled him to safety after being shot down. After 40 years, obviously some are easier to find than others. Most intriguing of all, the schoolgirl Annette, whose family sheltered him for weeks in Paris, and Robert, the young man who could get his hands on food and who escorted them to the Spanish border. My problem is that I just couldn't seem to establish an emotional connection to any of the characters, and I found the choice of the end point to be a touch bizarre and too uncertain to be satisfying.

That being said, Annette's story of life in the concentration camps was truly bone chilling, and easily the most compelling portion of the book. Like Marshall, I was swept away and deeply impressed at her bravery. It certainly made me fall a little in love with Annette, but the story from there didn't do a solid job of establishing the romantic connection. Were they two people truly falling in love with each other, or just sharing comfort and affection due to the revisiting of their shared past?

I couldn't decide how I felt about Marshall. Certainly I was touched by his own heroic sacrifices and his heartfelt gratitude to the people who saved him. But he just reads as a cold fish. I can understand being emotionally closed off from family and friends after the war, but now that he is on this voyage of rediscovery and rejuvenation, I expect to see some loosening of the restraints. The text seems to be saying that is happening, but I don't feel it. Also, his casual discussion of pre- and post-marital infidelities did nothing to endear him to me, social norms of the time notwithstanding.

So, as an educational look into the French Resistance and the price of its successes, it is an excellent novel. As a fully developed character driven story, it just never achieved altitude.

[June Ahern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having grown up on WWII war stories this book is very accurate in events and sentiments. My parents and older siblings were in Glasgow during that war and lived through the bombings of the town and the tremendous losses of family and friends. In detail they would tell of the frightening nights of running to the bomb shelters with babies in their arms, of the lack of food and other supplies and of their anger and hate of the Germans. This story of a man returning after forty odd years to France seeking some connection and understanding of his past where the people - brave French resistance - saved him from death or German prison camp. Once in France he must find those who helped me. His wife has passed on, his adult children have lives of their own and he has just been laid off his job as a commercial airlines pilot. The story truly touched me on many levels. The horrible horrific war times and how cruel the Germans were, beyond war, beyond human acceptance. Although the young French people and so many of today's young people forget, and really life is about moving forward, this story is a reminder how vicious people can become during war and how desperate hunted soldiers feel in a foreign place. It also reminds the reader that faith and loyalty to values and self begets a bravery beyond what we think we could be. I truly, truly loved this story.
City of Redemption
The Skye in June

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of Marshall Stone, an American pilot whose plane was shot down over Belgium during World War II. He has just been forced to retire from as an airline pilot and decides to go back to the scene of the crash and find some of the families and people who helped him escape through France and into Spain.

When reading this book, I split it into two parts. The first part I would give three stars and the second four. The first part was so jumbled, it was jarring to read. It jumped from the past to the present so often that I was constantly confused. I never knew what was going on or when or even who. One character I thought was a baby for a few pages but was suddenly a boy! I almost stopped reading it just because I couldn't ever seem to get my bearings.

The second part was much better. The flashbacks came to flow with the story instead of being abruptly placed. This is where the substance of the story lay. This is where the past came to light and was told with heart wrenching clarity. It was beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time. I wish the entire novel had been this way and not the startling changes in scene that plagued the beginning. There were a lot of loose ends that weren't really addressed with the somewhat abrupt ending. And I could see the book going on for another hundred pages at least.

[Simone · Rating 1 out of 5]

In a nutshell this is the story of Marshall, a retired pilot in 1980, who goes back to France to try and find the people who sheltered him during World War 2.

The publisher’s summary refers to his search as “a wrenching odyssey of discovery that threatens to break his heart—and also sets him on a new course for the rest of his life”. Huh? Are we talking about the same book??

I didn’t like it. I just didn’t “buy in” to the characters - and therefore the story. I could not relate to Marshall (the main character) so I didn’t believe his longing to connect with the past and embark on the journey. The rest of the cast was no better, they all seemed like caricatures more than anything else - cliché and exaggerated. … Frankly, I didn’t give a bleep about anyone!!

Regarding the narration, this book drove home my biggest pet peeve with audio books: a narrator who doesn’t have a knack for foreign languages or accents. In this case it was French, and it was very irksome to hear it be massacred over and over again. Things like: pronouncing “Rue” as “Roo” or pronouncing the N in “ca va bien” when it’s meant to be silent.

Glad to be done with this one!

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story is about a WW2 pilot who, having been shot down in his B-17 bomber, crashes onto a field in Belgium and is helped by the Resistance movement to work his way through and out of France to Spain. His escape from the Germans was successful and when he returned to civilian life after the war he became a pilot of commercial airliners, eventually flying the Boeing 747's until his forced retirement at the age of 60. Now retired he decides to return to the original crash site to see if he can find those Resistance people who originally helped him evade the Germans. The author acknowledges at the end of the book, the bibliography and people who assisted in creating the outline of the story. Somehow though there is, in my opinion, a serious disconnect between the research background and the resultant story. I was frustrated by the lack of development in the characters, the shallowness of the descriptions of life and the surroundings encountered, as well as a totally obvious plot development. I really wanted the story to succeed. I really wanted it to keep on evolving and take me into a believable story. Unfortunately it didn't.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an ARC sent by a kind Goodreads member. I loved reading Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country earlier this year. This novel is somewhat different. She explains in the Afterword how she based the novel, in part, on her father-in-law's wartime experiences.

I won't rehash the plot, just to say Marshall Stone, a retired American pilot at age 60, returns to France to hunt up his rescuers from back when his B-17 crash landed during the Second World War.

Well, I'm a big sucker for anything re: WW II, and Marshall's lifetime intrigue with Annette, the vibrant girl in the blue beret who was one of his saviors, just adds to the immense appeal.

Bobby Ann Mason gives us a layered narrative with the sharp observant details and full character development that I get excited over in novels. The ending dragged a bit there for me, but not enough to detract from the overall delight. This novel was tailormade to read over a July 4th weekend.

[Stacy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was SLOW MOVING. The name is "The Girl in the Blue Beret". But what it should have been called was "The Older Ex-Pilot in France" because there was hardly anything about the girl in the blue beret. I feel that more time should have been spent on her; you only really get to hear about her or her story at the end. Hmmm....and I struggle with this review because I know the author wanted to kind of make you wonder about her and she dangled a carrot or two here and there to try and keep the reader wondering. But there was never any kind of attraction between the two of them during the war. She loved someone else---if the pilot was attracted to her, it should have been addressed when he was young. Just all of a sudden there's an attraction at the end and I just think it could have been written better. Maybe then I would have enjoyed it.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this gentle, low-key, slow-moving novel. It isn't remarkable in conventional terms--plot, character, setting--but Mason conveys something authentic about survivors of the "Good War," about those in the "Greatest Generation." She gets right the reticence, the sense of honor and chivalry, the innocence. That is no small feat.

The main character is not real likeable, but even so, he retains that authenticity of the era. There were a few minor details that seemed deliberately placed to draw in us more modern readers, but they really don't detract from the story, or from the Truth at its heart.

I have loved Mason's regional work, and I have to say that I believe she will be remembered for her Kentucky stories, not for this foray into France. And yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.