CARRY ME by Peter Behrens (Anansi), 440 pages, $32 cloth. Rating: NNNN
Behrens reads at North York Central Library on March 15. See listings.
The family tree material that opens Peter Behrens’s Carry Me makes for a very dull beginning. But get past it – it’s only a few pages – and there’s a powerful tale set during last century’s world wars.
The story is told from the perspective of Billy Lange, who was born on the English summer estate of Baron von Weinbrenner, a German Jew and a close friend of Billy’s parents, one year before the birth of the Baron’s daughter Karin in the same place. The story’s essence is the relationship between kindred spirits Karin and Billy, but its fascination lies in the backdrop Europe’s upheaval. Set in England and Germany and moving between World War I and the rise of the Nazis, the book tracks the way allegiances shift during wartime and the devastating impact of being “othered,” and not just its impact on Jews. Billy’s German-speaking dad was interned in a London prison during the Great War.
Behrens probes the German psyche post-WWI, the shame people felt at losing the war, and the part played by anti-Semitism in fuelling their rage. This mindset allowed Hitler, a man of middling intelligence and something of a joke, to inspire young thugs to wreak terror in the streets and, later, to rise to absolute power.
All along, reliable Billy, who works at IG Farben (Behrens savvily describes that company’s history from resisting the Nazis to winding up in their pocket), is hot for the mercurial and elusive Karin. Her love for him is undeniable, though it’s never certain that it’s romantic. When he grasps the Nazi threat to the Jewish Karin, he tries to arrange their escape.
Will she go with him? they make it? Will their relationship survive?
That tension and the expertly drawn portrait of Europe at war make this novel a winner.
susanc@nowtoronto.com | @susangcole
