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The Secret of Raven Point: A Novel, by Jennifer Vanderbes
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From the award-winning author of Easter Island comes a powerful, “unputdownable” (Vogue.com) novel of love, loss, and redemption amid the ruins of war-torn Italy.
1943: When seventeen-year-old Juliet Dufresne receives a cryptic letter from her enlisted brother and then discovers that he’s been reported missing in action, she lies about her age and travels to the front lines as an army nurse, determined to find him. Shy and awkward, Juliet is thrust into the bloody chaos of a field hospital, a sprawling encampment north of Rome where she forges new friendships and is increasingly consumed by the plight of her patients. One in particular, Christopher Barnaby, a deserter awaiting court martial, may hold the answer to her brother’s whereabouts—but the trauma of war has left him catatonic. Racing against the clock, Juliet works with an enigmatic young psychiatrist, Dr. Henry Willard, to break Barnaby’s silence before the authorities take him away. Plunged into the horrifying depths of one man’s memories of combat, Juliet and Willard together plumb the moral nuances of a so-called “just war” and face the dangers of their own deepening emotional connection.
In vibrant, arresting prose, Vanderbes tells the story of one girl’s fierce determination to find her brother as she comes of age in a time of unrelenting violence. An unforgettable war saga that captures the experiences of soldiers long after the battles have ended, The Secret of Raven Point is heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting: “The only disappointing thing about this book is that it has to end” (Library Journal, starred review).
- Sales Rank: #549531 in eBooks
- Published on: 2014-02-04
- Released on: 2014-02-04
- Format: Kindle eBook
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Guest Review of The Secret of Raven Point
By Matthew Pearl
The plot alone of Jennifer Vanderbes's The Secret of Raven Point is a grabber, though it is just the beginning of the novel's strengths. Set during WWII, a young woman discovers that her enlisted brother has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Her desire to be part of the war effort and, at a deeper and more dangerous level, her will to find out what happened to her brother, leads her to volunteer as a nurse, giving us a rare perspective on the horrors and triumphs of war as she is sent to the Italian front. One of the usual challenges of placing fiction in a historical setting is how to maintain just the right touch, the interplay of a distant time and the private immediacy of characters we care about. This is what reels me into The Secret of Raven Point so thoroughly, making the big and important geopolitical events surrounding Vanderbes’s characters feel just as reachable and fresh as the very personal search on which the heroine Juliet embarks.
The elements that let you sink into the book are so well-balanced here. There's romance without being mawkish; there's real drama without being melodrama; and there's danger and suspense without ever feeling contrived. In many traditional depictions of World War II, we receive big panoramas of major battles; part of the interest Vanderbes skillfully creates comes by pushing the battles aside and leading us through the battle fatigues, the mental and physical injuries and the caretakers' traumas that make the hospital camps such fascinating subjects.
As a young woman sorting through the lives of the soldiers left behind as the war marches forward, Juliet never feels like an easy stand-in for the reader transported to WWII for the benefit of the story; she has a full force of life to her and that makes us invested in the secrets she chases. She adjusts and changes as the events of history do. One can think of this novel as having a parallel structure that is crafted by the heroine and the author; as Juliet peels back the layers of narrative around her brother's disappearance, Vanderbes builds the layers of the book. An equally fascinating aspect of the story revolves around Barnaby, a wounded soldier with whom Juliet forms a unique bond that could hold the key to her search. Again, he is not the typical figure of war. He is a complicated outcast who has felt the brunt of the accumulated cruelties of the battlefield and has been punished for it. Vanderbes is a great writer, at the level of words and the larger span of a compelling story, another reason The Secret of Raven Point is such a memorable novel that can be enjoyed in countless ways.
From Booklist
When her brother goes missing in Italy during WWII, young Juliet Dufresne signs up to be an army nurse. She and her brother have always been very close, and she cannot imagine her family life going on without him. Once in Italy, in addition to assisting in the constant surgeries performed at field hospitals, she helps psychiatrist Dr. Henry Willard, who is doing pioneering work on battle fatigue. When she finds out that patient Christopher Barnaby, a deserter up for court-martial, served in her brother’s unit, she becomes determined to bring Christopher out of his catatonic state so that he can tell her what happened to her brother. In her third novel, Vanderbes (Strangers at the Feast, 2010) graphically depicts the gruesome nature of battlefield injuries, both to the body and to the psyche, even as she shows Juliet’s courage and strength. The skillful Vanderbes’ aching depiction of Juliet’s struggle to maintain her humanity amid the army’s callous bureaucracy and the horrors of war works as both an homage to our armed forces and a moving personal story of emotional growth. --Joanne Wilkinson
Review
“The Secret of Raven Point is about piecing together meaning in lives and minds shattered by war. It's a meditation on the power of steadfast love in all its forms –romantic, fraternal, platonic, even divine—to restore wholeness out of chaos, and light out of unspeakable darkness. Jennifer Vanderbes gives us characters we care about and a story we believe in an engrossing novel that brings home the particularity of war. A moving tribute to a generation of men and women whose stories, and whose lives, for the most part are now lost to us, it's a great read.” (M.L. Stedman, author of The Light Between Oceans )
“The Secret of Raven Point is strikingly vivid, tackling war’s moral ambiguities from the open-eyed perspective of a young American woman on the cusp of adulthood…Vanderbes’s unputdownable third novel… finds contemporary resonance in classic themes of humanity and loyalty tested by extremes…[Juliet is] her most indelible character to date.” (Megan O'Grady Vogue.com)
“A sweet and sad love story…An unforgettable saga.” (Christian Science Monitor)
“The Secret of Raven Point draws the reader in with evocative period drama and a rich emotional portrait of its heroine. An arresting, exciting journey of discovery from an extremely talented author.” (Matthew Pearl author of The Technologists and The Dante Club)
“Fresh, compelling…War gives men and women a chance to become monsters or heroes, and Vanderbes finds her footing exploring these two extremes…[Juliet] is a companionable protagonist...She emerges from the experience as someone altered yet not conquered by war….Vanderbes performs admirably.” (The Washington Post)
“A touching tale of a sister’s love for her brother, but the underlying themes are much deeper. Readers will fall in love with the delightful Juliet, who is a smart and courageous heroine, and other hospital workers as they form friendships and struggle to accept tragedy and loss while treating their patients' physical and mental wounds…The only disappointing thing about this book is that it has to end.” (Library Journal, starred review)
“Jennifer Vanderbes' The Secret of Raven Point should do for war-era Italy what Hilary Mantel has done for 1500's England. That is, it proves that fiction can be history with blood in its veins, quickening for us the violence and sadness and the awful incongruity of war. A brilliant novelist, and a book to treasure and never to forget.” (Darin Strauss author of Chang & Eng and Half a Life)
"The Secret of Raven Point is a subtle evocation of war and loss, which Jennifer Vanderbes—with extraordinary cleverness and restraint—explores slantwise, the story coming visible through its glimmering contours, like an embossing on fine paper or an impression in snow." (Lauren Groff author of Arcadia)
“Part mystery, part coming-of-age tale, part World War II novel, Vanderbes’s…moving latest…is an empathetic, oblique take on the layers of damage done during war…Unusual and affecting” (Kirkus Reviews)
“Vanderbes graphically depicts the gruesome nature of battlefield injuries, both to the body and to the psyche, even as she shows Juliet’s courage and strength. The skillful Vanderbes’ aching depiction of Juliet’s struggle to maintain her humanity amid the army’s callous bureaucracy and the horrors of war works as both an homage to our armed forces and a moving personal story of emotional growth.” (Booklist)
“The Secret of Raven Point at first seems to be the mystery of a young man gone missing in World War II, but as the pages begin to fly by, the layers become deeper…This novel had me wrapped in the lives of the couple, who endure much personal loss and yet manage to find humanity in the darkest of times. Definitely one of my favorite reads of the year.” (The Historical Novel Society)
"The Secret of Raven Point is that rare book that reminds us of the deep, immersive pleasures of novel-reading: of getting lost in a story, of being transported to another time and place, of growing so attached to characters that they feel as present and real as one’s own friends. Jennifer Vanderbes takes a harrowing but little-known chapter from WWII history and through her compassionate and brilliant rendering, transforms it into a story that is urgent, personal, and profoundly moving." (Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, National Book Award-Nominated author of Madeleine is Sleeping )
Most helpful customer reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
Suspenseful, gorgeously written coming-of-age story of a Nurse in the field hospitals of WWII
By Hilary Redmon
This is compulsively readable and yet profoundly mature. As ever, the author's moral compass is exquisitely sensitive and her rendering of relationships here--romantic and otherwise-is hugely compelling. The plot kept me turning the pages as did the strong sense that I was in these rickety field hospitals with Juliet. It's an incredibly un-frivolous, exciting coming-of-age story inside a shockingly realistic picture of war and its impact on the people under fire.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Page-turning and thought-provoking...and a great brother-sister story!
By Sarah Funke Butler
What a great protagonist! Think Scout Finch in her teens. Smart, subversive, determined ... she goes to war to find her brother and discovers so much, of course, about herself. Full of action and suspense, but without sparing depth and probity, The Secret of Raven Point is one of those novels that will always feel timely. And, like Vanderbes's earlier novels, the writing is elegant, each sentence flawless. Recommend!
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
Too light, for all its heaviness
By "switterbug" Betsey Van Horn
Until I approached the last several pages, I found this book to be mediocre, despite the themes illuminating the heinous brutalities of war. The drama is not particularly new, and the characters are essentially shallow and flat. However, this is one of those rare times that, although I didn't enjoy the mundane journey, I was stirred by the final destination. The closing pages of the book was one of the few times that nuance availed itself, and allowed me to contemplate the first complexity that this book had to offer.
It is WW II, and Juliet is just finishing high school, with a love of chemistry. However, her brother Tuck, who surprised them all and joined up, is now MIA somewhere north of Rome. Subsequently, Juliet lies about her age, and joins the war effort as a nurse in a MASH unit, hoping to find word of her brother.
Too conveniently, who should turn up in her field hospital but a patient, Barnaby, who knew Tuck. The novel teases out Barnaby's knowledge of Tuck gradually, in order to keep up the suspense (by rendering him catatonic at first). However, I felt minimal suspense and zero tension. Actually, a lot happens that is too convenient and calculated, such as Julia running into Tuck's best friend, her first kiss; he, too, had become a soldier. And there she was! In a cave with him! In the north of Rome! But, of course, Beau had heard nothing from Tuck. This was just so Juliet could lose her virginity to someone she knew. And some other pithy and predictable scenes could ensue.
Tuck, for one thing, was a cipher. The few scenes with him and Juliet at the start of the novel were hackneyed. I could never miss him, engage with him, or care about him, except through Juliet, whose character was straight out of central casting.
Willard, the psychiatrist, was insubstantial. The attraction between Willard and Juliet was telegraphed throughout the narrative, but was inorganic and manipulative. The characters in this novel were flimsy; the novel, for the most part, uninspired. There was the tough but brave head nurse, the troubled Brother Reardon, and every other stereotype you find in a war novel that aims for the mass market.
Scenes of graphic dismemberment and the violence of war, or depicting the shell-shocked victims, felt trivialized. Vanderbes covered ground that has been covered before, and it felt so superficial and check-boxed, and full of platitudes, that I couldn't believe that this was the same Vanderbes that wrote the sly, subtle STRANGERS AT THE FEAST. The dialogue was cringe-worthy, such as:
"I enjoy your company very much--perhaps too much. Maybe I shouldn't say that; maybe I can only say it now that I'm leaving. Maybe I shouldn't have indulged those feelings. But I'm human."
What saved this from being a complete disaster were the last few pages. It compelled me to add a star in the rating.
2.5 rounded up
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