Escape

by Ethel Vance (Pseudonym), Grace Zaring Stone

Emily Ritter's son journeys to Nazi Germany to free her from the concentration camp where she has been condemned to death

Genres: Fiction

428 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Pseudonym of Grace Zaring Stone.

Reviews

[Maggie M · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate cowardly endings.

[smokeandmirrors · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really crazy reading experience in that it reallyyy worked for me, but then when I try to think about why it worked I just get ???s from my brain. The ending feels so depressing as an conclusion for the Countess' journey but I was so affected by it... The main couple (?) only met a handful of times but I really bought their connection.... A 15 year torrid affair backstory is patently insane but I bought that too. Well anyway this was really well written and did that thing that some older books do where it drifts between several POVs and manages to feel interesting and distinctive in each one. A couple of descriptions of people that I found really lovely which I'll put under a cut:
Several of this doctor character:

The doctor frowned. He was a tall, roughly built young man with a bony red face and pointed cheekbones; his eyes were small and intensely blue. Only his thin, red wrists, long for the sleeves of his black uniform, had a sensitive look.

His uniform made him like all the rest and his face and body were rude and elementary like a wooden Gothic figure made in a remote village. Only his wrists, thin and red and clean and always too far below his sleeves, made his gestures seem delicate and incongruous to what he was and to what he did in this chilly room. 

He was among those standing against the wall, a tall young man, as far as he could see, shabby, or at any rate very unfashionable, in a coat with queer narrow shoulders and sleeves a little too short. His face had a Gothic look, everything in it pointed upward, the flaring nostrils, the lips, the cheek-bones. His eyes, even at a distance, showed piercingly blue; and his skin was reddened as though it had never known anything but extreme cold. 

This description of the Countess:

A knot of too heavy, ash-blond hair was pressed untidily between the collar and a sealskin cap. As he was trying to decide what made this charming the woman turned and he thought at once, Why, I know her! But she looked at him and her face didn't change and then he thought, No, I must be thinking of someone else... But still he felt sure he'd seen her somewhere. He couldn't have seen two people like her. Her face was given strangeness by the eyes, which were unusually long and seemed dark, though they might be green or blue, and turned up at the ends under dark brows that also turned. Her nose was a little concave, with sensitive, wide, flaring nostrils, her lips full and beautiful. The eyes and her long neck showing through the open collar made him think of a swan and he knew he'd thought of that before too. 

And this moment sooo deftly captured a specific centrist-y sentiment:

Suzanne at the piano bowed her head and seemed to be in a momentary submission to the music and to them. "It's heaven," said Sully, and the girl from St. Joseph thought vaguely that it was a pity people couldn't all get together like this all the time, in this sort of union over something nice instead of hating each other the way they did, and having thought this she felt a pleasing glow, as though she had made a contribution to the peace of the world.

[Christine Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story! It was written in 1939, during Hitler's rise to power, and it is chilling. Watch what you say and do and think because the walls have ears and you must agree with the Party or else. The plot is a real page-turner and even though the writing is sometimes a bit too philosophical for me, I was very interested in the characters and their dire predicament. Will Mark save his mother? Will the General foil their plan? Will the Countess be able to help them? Now I have to see the movie to find out what Hollywood did with this great material. A GOOD read!

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okay read and did become quite gripping as it went on. What makes it interesting is that it was written not with hindsight but in 1939.

[Annette Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the sense of menace and the growing tension, a real page turner.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a story. Very ingenuous plot.

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

A long read that brags of suspense, but leaves a dissatisfied reader feeling robbed of promised excitement. Really the only point in investing the time to read such a lengthy novel ought to be for those appreciative of the historical context of its publication; perhaps what’s scary is not the actual content of the novel, but rather the “fiction” that was ironically relevant to European events in 1939. There is no mention of Nazis or Hitler but the author uses the descriptions and context to make it clear exactly who the man in the big picture next to the banner was or who the men with skulls on the caps are. Yet, you know the identity (with a little historical context). Readers of 1939 knew the identity. Thinking about what they thought of it upon publication is the closest excitement to be had. I’m still glad that I did read it, I just wouldn’t consider it to be very successful as a suspense novel.

[L.C.]

Helen Thompson's favorite book.