The Life of Objects

The Life of Objects (2012) by Susanna Moore. In 1938, seventeen-year-old Beatrice, an Irish Protestant lace maker, finds herself in fairy-tale territory as she is whisked away from her humdrum existence to live with an aristocratic family near Berlin. It is Beatrice's fate to live through the years of World War II as a member of a German household, facing hunger and illness, the grave threats of Nazi terror, and the collapse of civilization as a horde of refugees from the advancing Russian armies overwhelm the resources of her hosts. This is a well told tale, in all its gruesome details, and makes a strong impression that will not soon leave the reader. Grade: A