All the Clouds

by Michael Barnes Selvin

This novel is based on first-hand accounts of life during WW2 in southern France. The genesis and principal events of the novel were recounted some seventy years after the fact by a close architect, scholar, father, government official, musician. When the occupation began, he joined the Résistance, helping people escape France. As the war continued, he became dangerously caught up in resistance, transporting charcoal from Spain. In March 1943, the Gestapo arrested him following an all-night jam session with Django Reinhardt and Georges Ulmer (neither arrested). The Americans liberated him from Buchenwald in April 1945. As a recipient of the Légion d’Honneur, among numerous other decorations, his story lies at the heart of this novel. He spent hours recounting his life during the war, literally with great pain. Although making this exception, his war-time experience never left his mind a single day of his long life.

542 pages, Paperback

Published March 2, 2016

About the author

After a successful career as a vice president and principal in marketing and finance for a financial services subsidiary of an international engineering firm, Michael Barnes Selvin began writing historical fiction.

His first novel, published in 2008, The Telemachia: A History by Antimenes of Argos told the story of Telemachus, son of Odysseus, after the family's departure from Ithaca. This novel was recognized by Independent Publisher in their award ceremony.

Having a home on the Mediterranean coast in south-west France for over 20 years and comfortable in French, he was introduced to the artwork of the Master of Cabestany by close friends. He and his wife became impassioned with the work of the Master, visiting all the major sites of his sculptures in Spain and France. The resulting novel was Heaven Walker: The Story of the Master of Cabestany.

His third novel, All the Clouds, recently completed, is set during World War II in the south of France. This exciting novel is based on the true story by a man caught in the resistance helping people escape from the occupied zone and ultimately arrested by the Gestapo. He was ultimately sent to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Talking with him and others who experienced the occupation in the region of French Catalonia extended over many years. The accounts of this terrible period formed the basis of the novel. Many of those who provided these difficult and painful testimonials have departed, but the novel is testimony to their ingenuity, courage, and deprivations.

The author has graduate degrees in English and business. He and his wife live in Berkeley, California and have had a home on the French Mediterranean in the village of Banyuls-sur-Mer for the past twenty-five years.