News of Our Loved Ones

by Abigail DeWitt

Set in France and America, News of Our Loved Ones is a haunting and intimate examination of love and loss, beauty and the cost of survival, witnessed through two generations of one French family, whose lives are all touched by the tragic events surrounding the D-Day bombings in Normandy.

What if your family’s fate could be traced back to one indelible summer?

Over four long years, the Delasalle family has struggled to live in their Nazi occupied village in Normandy. Maman, Oncle Henri, Yvonne, and Françoise silently watched as their Jewish neighbors were arrested or wordlessly disappeared. Now in June 1944, when the sirens wail each day, warning of approaching bombers, the family wonders if rumors of the coming Allied invasion are true—and if they will survive to see their country liberated.

For sixteen-year-old Yvonne, thoughts of the war recede when she sees the red-haired boy bicycle past her window each afternoon. Murmuring to herself I love you, I love you, I love you, she wills herself to hear the whisper of his bicycle tires over the screech of Allied bombs falling from the sky.

Yvonne’s sister, Geneviève, is in Paris to audition for the National Conservatory. Pausing to consider the shadow of a passing cloud as she raises her bow, she does not know that her family’s home in Normandy lies in the path of British and American bombers. While Geneviève plays, her brother Simon and Tante Chouchotte, anxiously await news from their loved ones in Normandy.

Decades later, Geneviève, the wife of an American musician, lives in the United States. Each summer she returns to her homeland with her children, so that they may know their French family. Geneviève’s youngest daughter, Polly, becomes obsessed with the stories she hears about the war, believing they are the key to understanding her mother and the conflicting cultures shaping her life.

Moving back and forth in time, told from varying points of view, News of Our Loved Ones explores the way family histories are shared and illuminates the power of storytelling to understand the past and who we are.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, World War II, France, Adult Fiction, Wwii Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 2, 2018

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is lovely. It’s easy to connect with the characters, their heartbreaking losses, with feelings and flaws that are recognizable because they feel realistic. This is different from a lot of WWII fiction that I’ve read. Abigail Dewitt doesn’t engage us directly in the violence of the war. Though the bombs fall and there are losses of life, it’s quietly told, from afar. The Holocaust, of course is taking place, but we are not exposed to the atrocities of the camps, yet there are Jews who are arrested and there are Jews who must pose as gentiles to escape that fate. A French family’s story with multiple intimate narratives from them and others in Caen, or in Paris from those who left, or later in years in the US, another generation. Different time frames, different perspectives, sometimes different recollections of what happened during the occupation, mother’s secrets, things the characters chose to do, the impact, traumatic for some on this family. The book description gives more detail - characters names, more of the plot for those interested. This is not a very long book, but it took time to read, to piece together the narratives and at times it felt like a collection of stories, beautifully brought together.


I received an advanced copy of this book from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.

[Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another 5 star read!

I’ve read a few books recently about the small decisions that can shape a family’s life for generations to come. In addition to that, there are major life events that can do the same thing, and such is the story with News of Our Loved Ones.

The Delasalle family lives a meager existence in a Nazi-occupied village in Normandy, France, when in 1944, it is rumored that the Allies will invade. Their home is in the direct path of the Allied bombers. While one teenage sister, Yvonne, is in Normandy in the family home for D-Day, the other, Genevieve, is in Paris auditioning for the National Conservatory.

Several years later, Genevieve is living in the United States and married to an American musician. She travels home with her children to keep their French ancestry alive. Genevieve’s daughter, Polly, believes that understanding the war will in turn help her understand her mother.

News of Our Loved Ones is a gorgeously written novel about war, family, and strength, and also how grief, loss, and trauma can impact a family for generations. The characters are steadfast, vivid, and remarkably drawn, and the emotional layers are deeply resonant. Moreover, the storyline was riveting. In a mere 240 pages, Abigail DeWitt paints a stunning picture with an intricate and powerful story of family.

Thank you to the most generous Harper Books for the complimentary ARC. All opinions are my own.

My reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 This beautifully written novel focuses on the aftermath of war, it's effect on those of generations to come, rather than on the war itself. It exposes how memories vary from one person to the next, by giving us a series of connected stories, or experiences if you will. Each chapter provides a piece of the puzzle, each character their own story, until the piece is finished, and whole. A story of a family that starts in France and on to America. A story of family loyalty, love, secrets and a darkness before once again seeing some brightness, light.

While this story does work toward a unified whole. I did have some trouble with the way it is written. Short chapters often broke up an interesting narrative. The back and forth I often found confusing, frustrating. Still, this is an important work, and I liked that while it related war experiences, it focused on the individual, the family. In my readings this has been a rare occurrence. It features a remarkable woman at it's core and highlights the endurance of not only life, but the human spirit as well.

ARC from Edelweiss.

[SimitudeSims · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seemed very disjointed. I feel like I have too much information and at the same time not enough. There are so many characters that I don't feel like I knew hardly any of them enough. I wish a main character was picked and the story evolved around them. It felt like a lot of short stories that had related characters. I do have to say that I loved the ending. I felt like it tied up a few loose ends.

[Marialyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tragedy of war leaves its remnants upon people long after the war has ceased. A World War II novel always bring into focus all the lives lost, the lands destroyed, and the people who were left behind. In the book News of Our Loved Ones, that tragedy is explored as we are introduced to the Delasalle family and the trauma they were exposed to while living in Normandy during the war.

The village in which the family resided was overtaken by the Nazis. They witness the terrors of the war, their Jewish neighbors being taken away, and their lives changing daily as they tried to adjust to the occupation hoping that soon rescue and relief would come to them. Can they live long enough with the bombings taking place almost daily to witness the freeing of their country and their village.

The story moves to years later when Geneviève, the sister of one of the characters and the wife of an American musician, returns each summer to France. She brings her wartime feelings and as her daughter, Polly learns more about the times of war, she feels she can begin to understand a mother that always has seemed distant to her. Links to the past are what drives her and often we see how those this affect the very person we ultimately become.

Told through the interchanging of time periods, this story is slow moving and brings up the devastation that war bring onto families. At times, this flipping back and forth between generations made for a somewhat hard to follow scenario for me. However, this book was wonderfully written and again brought forward the desolation and havoc that the winds of war bring onto families. They, these winds, never leave but rustle through lives leaving behind loss and ruin.

Thank you to Abigail DeWitt, Harper Books, and Edelweiss for a copy of this book.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...
My reviews can also be seen here: http://yayareadslotsofbooks.wordpress...

[Krystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seemed on the brink of something potentially great but never quite got there for me. Many interconnected stories that seemed partially finished and disjointed. I️ found myself having a difficult time following the characters and respective storylines.

[MaryBeth's Bookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

News Of Our Loved Ones is the story of one family's survival during World War II in France. Told from multiple perspectives, the writing flows beautifully from one story to the next. A quick, but deeply engrossing read.

[Barb · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's probably just me but this novel by Abigail DeWitt, although very well written, just didn't have much of an impact on me. Telling this story from so many different viewpoints seemed to water down the potential of powerful storytelling with a lack of in depth character development. Characters come and go but I would have rather the author concentrate on one or two and the life long effects of D-Day and the German occupation. It looks like I'm in the minority here as it's a 2.5 for me.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written tale of two generations of family and the impact the war and the choices they made had on them. I loved this intimate portrait of a family and how the ripples from the war spread out to each family member. Told in multiple perspectives and generations, this was a insightful look at how events shape and impact a family for generations to come. I didn’t particularly like the multiple viewpoints as it got confusing many times and the story didn’t flow as nicely as it could have. I would be reading one story and wholly invested, only to have it come to an abrupt end until that character came around again. This was a wonderful story though with great heart. For me, News of Our Loved Ones was ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars (rounded up from 3.5). Thank you @harpercollinsus for this advance reader in exchange for my honest review.

[Dennis McClure · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our publisher asked me to do a number of things after they bought our book last year. Do social media, they said. So I did. And there are an infinite number of authors hawking their books on social media. It's embarrassing. I'm not going to do that.

But I kept running across one writer who was there with taste and subtlety. Who didn't make me cringe at all. And her book, not at all the sort of thing that would reach out and grab me, was there. And it began to haunt me. So I bought it. And it was News of Our Loved Ones. And I thought, what if I hate it? Because I loved author and her presence. And the ambience of the book cover kept getting my attention...

I ordered it after Christmas. I've been reading it for the past three days. And I'm so relieved. Because I loved it. I learned from it. The author is woven all through it. I feel as though I know her. And her intricate, finely crafted, complicated novel ties people and their inner realities together in a way I've rarely experienced in any book.

It's about a family in occupied France during the war. It's about the holocaust. She clearly gets the history. But it's about a lot more than that. She puts her reader deep inside her characters. She makes us feel with them.

It's thrilling and illuminating and it makes me feel more connected to everyone around me.

Did you ever just want to say "thank you" to an author?

[Gretchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

News of Our Loved Ones tells the story through the lens of different characters in the Delasalle family interacting with the Naquets as it suffers through WWII, suffering and loss, until the 21st century.
I could have used a road map to keep track of the different stories told through the eyes of the family members, even those who we know had been killed.
The book begins with the opening of WWII and the events of June 6, 1944 as the DDay Normandy invasion hits Caen. I could easily reread this book to savor the stories and appreciate the characters.
I received this book through a goodreads giveaway.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found myself getting a little lost in the telling of this story because it bounces around along a family timeline in which several members of the family have the same name. I really did enjoy it though. My confusion may simply stem from listening to the audio book version instead of seeing the print in front of me. A wonderful story.

[Maureen Grigsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is based on the family history of the author, whose grandmother and several aunts died in the bombings on D-Day. Compelling!

[Darnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is so beautifully written, so vivid, so moving, and the characters and their lives are so sharply drawn. This is a book that will stay with you long after you've read the last page. Like so many other great writers who have used family history as a seed for great fiction, DeWitt is a master at rendering artful and riveting fictional lives from the minimal strokes history provides. If I could nominate this book for the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, I would do so in a heartbeat. If I could afford to stand on a street corner and pass out copies, I would do that too.

[Jean Kolinofsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

News of Our Loved Ones is a beautifully written story that moves between occupied France and America in the years following WWII. The Delasalle family lives in Normandy and find themselves in the path of the Allied invasion on D-Day. Their story is told by the women of the family and it is one of love, loss and remembrance.

I received a pre-publication copy of this book from Harper Collins in exchange for my review. I have already ordered a print copy of this book because it is a story that I would not only re-read, but will recommend and share with others.

[Glenda Nelms · Rating 5 out of 5]

News of Our Loved Ones is an impactful and moving novel through different perspectives of the Delasalle family living in a Nazi-occupied village in France during World War II. The book opens with the D-Day invasion in Normandy. Abigail Dewitt takes readers to places during the war and then to America. Dewitt provides us with perspectives from the Delasalle family, villagers in small French towns. This novel paints a moving portrait of reslience, trauma, strength and love of a family

[Jesse Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written with an exquisite tone, but the lack of a main character and the multitude of shifting perspectives left me unable to connect with the story below the surface.

[Amal · Rating 5 out of 5]

News of Our Loved Ones is a book about World War II – stop, it’s not the kind of World War II book that you’re probably thinking it is. Author Abigail DeWitt settles readers into various places during the war and then in America, after it. She jumps from character to character, providing a rich story and detailed characters without having to christen the book as “yet another Holocaust story”. No, DeWitt’s novel provides us with a point of view of some of the others: villagers in small French towns, daughters who move to Paris to study music, villagers who lived complicated lives before settling into the town of Caen, France – a town occupied by the Nazi Germans, a town directly in the path of the soon to be invading Allies and their bombers, a town that becomes a focal point for the memory of Genevieve, one of the characters that DeWitt narrates with and one of the only surviving members of the Delasalle family, whom readers spend the most time with as DeWitt’s story twists forwards and backwards through time.



Full review can be found at: https://bookbarblog.com/2018/10/01/ne...

[Amanda (bears.and.books) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

Set during WWII, the many characters in this book are linked by one family and what happens to them on D-Day. Yet this book was not what I’d expected at all, and that’s why I had such a difficult time reading it. It wasn’t a chronological story; each chapter was told from a different POV and often it took me a few pages to even determine who I was reading about, how they had anything to do with the characters introduced in the first chapter, or even what year it was in relation to the D-Day events.

I really wanted to like this book, to find some sort of light at the end of such a depressing read. And for that reason, I was glad I stuck around because the last chapter tied in to the first chapter quite nicely and I finally found how everything was connected in the end. But there were chapters and characters in between that seemed like filler and made no sense to the overall story.

I always dislike giving bad reviews, so I’ll just say multiple POVs are not my thing. But if you don’t mind character switches and discovering how these different views link to one another, then this book is for you.

[Jenifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first thought upon picking up this book might have been, "Do I really need to read another novel about French women-- or anyone, really-- living through World War Two?"

I couldn't have been more wrong. I was lost in this beautiful, sad book for hours, reading through my entire Saturday afternoon. In less than 220 pages, Abigail DeWitt weaves a tale of love and heartbreak, marriage and affairs, family, estrangement, war, youth, old age, fate, foolishness and ultimately, understanding. The chapters read like short stories, told from different points of view, covering nearly 100 years in the lives of the Delasalle family and others who cross their paths. While the stories are loosely tied together by a family tragedy that happens during the bombing of Normandy on D-Day, the novel is really about the impact of that tragedy and a series of family secrets on multiple generations.

I highly recommend this book for readers who enjoy historical fiction and intergenerational family stories.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written and brutally honest, the book offers a glimpse at life in France during the second world war and afterward- the randomness, selfishness, impassivity, fear, shame and trauma. For this set of characters, life loses purpose after an air strike on their home, and they go on silently mulling why one person lived and another did not, so much so that they cannot come to a reckoning about the past. Instead, each character is discomforted when others do not recall or respect memories of the war in the same way. Each has her own way of separating past from present and determining which carries priority. Personal memories of ordinary days and moments linger for all, making it difficult to connect with others, even family and friends.

[Linda Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stunningly beautiful book. The structure is ingenious and the heart is so lyrical I read it slowly so as not to miss a single melodious note.

[Ayny · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Well...for a small book it took me a while finish.Lost interest and started to lose track of the characters. Could have been better.

[Elizabeth Lutyens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a kaleidoscope of a novel, its facets shifting with each twist of the author’s deft hand. The multiple point-of-view characters, the expanse of time (1940s to 2000s), and the spread of settings -- from Normandy to Paris to North Carolina and back to France -- acknowledge the large canvas of a world at war. To cope with the vastness of this backdrop, Dewitt chooses a nonlinear map, perhaps sensing that a sequential narrative would not do justice to those enigmatic times. For this reader, the very shifts in time, voice, and place are essential to the fullest enjoyment of the novel’s complexities.

Although the focus remains chiefly on the stories of three generations of the Delasalle family, the centerpiece chapter, “The Jew and the German,” invites the reader to take a narrative leap. This slant on the familiar motif of hunter and hunted moves beyond portrayals of the novel’s “heroes” to a dream-like portrayal of the enemy, an imagining driven by the painting of a single marigold. Similar images throughout -- bitter bowls of chicory, ash like white fur on the hems of nun’s habits, dogwood rasping on glass – are so specific and sumptuous that the reader breathes this air as if it were her own.

However wide the novel’s camera may range, it never fails to zoom in on the most minute details of these character’s lives; it takes its time with the unraveling of their secrets and probes the remotest corners of their relationships. After all, war or no war, relationships among people are the element of a story that intrigue us the most.

[Lindsey Lewandowski · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book read slowly and haphazardly - there was a story in there somewhere (and when it emerged, I was interested in this family's history), but more often than not, I found myself wondering which character was narrating (i.e., we heard the character speak before we knew who they were). Also, while it's true the language was lovely at times, mostly, it felt like the writer was writing overly descriptively for the sake of writing beautifully - which wasn't necessary and distracted from the storytelling. Ultimately, this book confused me.

[Duncan Swann · Rating 3 out of 5]

There seems to be a never ending supply of WW2/Holocaust stories, but this manages to differentiate itself. Focusing on a French family which is torn apart by the D Day Landing, it sweeps back and forth through time, and hopping between characters. All this works to create a mosaic of tragedy interlaced with the strength of family. Very entertaining and would recommend if you love your WW2 stories.

[Judy Goldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeously written novel -- deeply moving and richly imagined, both tragic and joyful. This stunning book and its well-defined characters will stay with you long after you turn the last page. It's a story about the ferocity of war and how it affects not only the people who live through it, but also, the generations that follow. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Read it. Then bring it to your book club; it would make for a fascinating discussion.

[Raven · Rating 3 out of 5]

News of Our Loved Ones is beautifully written, but hard to follow as each chapter puts you with a different character and often in a different place in time without telling you quite whose story you are now following. Eventually by the 3rd page or perhaps more, you figure it out, but each time you become lost, the flow ceases as you try to pick up the threads and figure out how to tie them into something you have previously read. I found the book frustrating…beautiful, but frustrating.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I so wanted to like this book but ultimately could not finish it. It started out well but I soon felt like I was reading a completely different book. This book is not so much one continuous story but more of a collection of short somewhat connected stories. Unfortunately, it was very confusing and difficult to keep track of who was telling the story and even what they were trying to say.

[Sierra Brooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was so very disappointing. I like books that put you out of your comfort zone, understanding the struggles of someone else’s life, and ultimately thought this would be an incredible short read. However, the authors introduces too many characters and doesn’t allow for much of any connection in their life. I got halfway through and could not continue. Maybe it got better, but I struggled to read such an easy book.