Persephone Books discussion

Is anyone else reading this? I finally started it and it's heartbreaking and yet fascinating at the same time. I cannot believe what these people went through.

I'm about halfway through...it's an amazing story!

Sorry it took me a while to finish...so, what did everyone think of the book? What an amazing story...I thought that the first part of the book moved pretty quickly, but the last part took me a while to get through! Did that happen with anyone else?
Also, what do you think you would have done in Hilda's situation? Would you have left at the same time she did, or earlier? Most of us are pretty far-removed from that kind of environment, so it's hard to imagine living that way...with so much fear and uncertainty.

I agree, the first part moved quickly but I got kind of bogged down in the middle, I had trouble keeping track of all the people on trial. It was horrific though, just an absolute travesty of justice. Mind boggling! And I thought Hilda's escape was so scary -- I can't imagine having to drop and leave everything like that, including your children.

As much as I admire their convictions for staying, I don't know if I could have done it. I'm sure I would have left earlier.

Oddly, I had the opposite experience: I found the first part rather slow and was increasingly riveted by the trial (though the escape was a bit slow again). Such a horrible situation for her with regard to escaping: damned if you do and leave your children, damned if you don't and go to prison.

Reading it left me with a wish to read Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela -- I feel terribly ignorant about South Africa. That's what I like about Persephone's non-fiction, though; it encourages me to read books I probably wouldn't ordinarily pick up.

I just finished this and loved it too. I wasn't sure I would like it and would never have read it if it hadn't been a Persephone, but it was surprisingly easy to get into. I like the way that she mixed the personal with the political and didn't go into long justifications of her beliefs or of why the resistance happened in the way that it did. It was just "we decided we had to do this, and then this happened".

This would be a good one for us to read again!

I absolutely loved this book. Growing up I had never learned about the apartheid so I learned while reading this book. The book is so well written. I can not believe what Hilda's family and friends went through. I often wondered why she didn't leave earlier but it would be so hard to leave a country where your husband was jailed.

Yes, this was a great book! I'll put it on the list to read again as a group...it's been a while! Thanks for your comments, Heidi :)

I read this a few years ago and I really liked it. I learned so much from reading this wonderful piece of history and I will definitely read it again.

I loved this when I read it, as I said above. Later I bought another copy as a gift for my mother, who also loved it.