Book info

• Title The Evening Chorus
• Author Helen Humphreys
• Year 2015
• Genre Historical

Shot down on his first RAF mission, James Hunter spends his war in a German prison camp. The other captive soldiers busy themselves planning their escapes, but James dedicates himself to a detailed study of the redstarts nesting just beyond the camp boundaries - a project that gives him something to live for and earns him an unusual ally in the Kommandant in charge of the camp. Rose, James's young wife, is spending her war in a cottage on the lip of Ashdown Forest in Sussex, with her dog Harris for company. She'd hardly known James before he went away and can barely engage with his letters, which talk of nothing but birds. Now she has fallen in love with someone else - Toby, a young pilot home on sick leave. They meet secretly at night. Then James's brusque sister Enid is bombed out of her flat in London and comes to live in Rose's tiny cottage. Little more than strangers, both women are guarded, and Rose tries to conceal her affair from Enid. But later both look back on this strange interlude as one of their happiest.

Thoughts

I liked the first half of this, whereby a prisoner of war spends his days watching the birdlife just outside the camp rather than dealing with the atrocities of life inside with the Nazis. It was interesting to see the relationship develop between him and the Kommandant.

The book splits up though, swapping narratives to focus on the wife left behind and the sister escaping from London. I thought it was building to something good, but I felt a bit let down by the ending. None of the characters seemed happy, none as though they had gone through a journey towards anything other than absolute misery.

As a way of showing the bleakness and death surrounding war, it worked well, because I was left feeling depressed and bereft. Perhaps that was the aim, in which case it was well done. I would have liked just the tiniest glimpse of sunshine, though.

Rating: 3 / 5