The Girl in the Blue Beret
Bobbie Ann Mason, 2011
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812978872
Summary
Inspired by the wartime experiences of her father-in-law, Bobbie Ann Mason has crafted the haunting and profoundly moving story of an American World War II pilot shot down in Occupied Europe, and his wrenching odyssey of discovery, decades later, as he uncovers the truth about those who helped him escape in 1944.
At twenty-three, Marshall Stone was a confident, cocksure U.S. flyboy stationed in England, with several bombing raids in a B-17 under his belt. But when enemy fighters forced his plane to crash-land in a Belgian field during a mission to Germany, Marshall had to rely solely on the kindness of ordinary Belgian and French citizens to help him hide from and evade the Nazis.
Decades later, restless and at the end of his career as an airline pilot, Marshall returns to the crash site and finds himself drawn back in time, unable to stop thinking about the people who risked their lives to save Allied pilots like him. Most of all, he is obsessed by the girl in the blue beret, a courageous young woman who protected and guided him in occupied Paris.
Framed in spellbinding, luminous prose, Marshall’s search for her gradually unfolds, becoming a voyage of discovery that reveals truths about himself and the people he knew during the war. Deeply beautiful and impossible to put down, The Girl in the Blue Beret is an unforgettable story—intimate, affecting, exquisite—of memories, second chances, and one intrepid girl who risked it all for a stranger. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 1, 1940
• Where—Mayfield, Kentucy, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Kentucky; M.A.,
State University of New York, Binghamton;
Ph.D., University of Connecticut
• Awards—Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award
• Currently—lives in Kentucky
Bobbie Ann Mason is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and literary critic from Kentucky.
With four siblings Mason grew up on her family's dairy farm outside of Mayfield, Kentucky. As a child she loved to read, so her parents, Wilburn and Christina Mason, always made sure she had books. These books were mostly popular fiction about the Bobbsey Twins and the Nancy Drew mysteries. She would later write a book about these books that she loved to read as an adolescent titled The Girl Sleuth: A feminist guide to the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and Their Sisters.
After high school, Mason went on to major in English at the University of Kentucky. After graduating in 1962, she took several jobs in New York City with various movie magazines, writing articles about various stars who were in the spotlight. She wrote about Annette Funicello, Troy Donahue, Fabian, and other teen stars.
She earned her master’s degree at the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1966. Next she went to graduate school at the University of Connecticut, where she subsequently received her Ph.D. in literature with a dissertation on Vladimir Nabokov's Ada in 1972. Her dissertation was published in paperback form as Nabokov's Garden two years later.
Stories
By the time she was in her later thirties, Bobbie Ann started to write short stories. In 1980 The New Yorker published her first story.
It took me a long time to discover my material. It wasn't a matter of developing writing skills, it was a matter of knowing how to see things. And it took me a very long time to grow up. I'd been writing for a long time, but was never able to see what there was to write about. I always aspired to things away from home, so it took me a long time to look back at home and realize that that's where the center of my thought was.
Mason went on to write a collection, Shiloh and Other Stories, which appeared in 1982 and won the 1983 Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award for outstanding first works of fiction. Later story collections include Love and Live (1989), Midnight Magic (1998), Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail (2002), and Nancy Culpepper (2006). Over the years, her stories have appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, New Yorker, and Paris Review.
Mason writes about the working-class people of Western Kentucky, and her short stories have contributed to a renaissance of regional fiction in America creating a literary style that critics have labeled "shopping mall realism."
Novels and memoir
Mason wrote her first novel, In Country, in 1985. It is often cited as one of the seminal literary works of the 1980s with a protagonist who attempts to come to terms with important generational issues, ranging from the Vietnam War to consumer culture. A film version was produced in 1989, starring Emily Lloyd as the protagonist and Bruce Willis as her uncle.
She followed In Country with another novel in 1988, Spence and Lila. She has since published others: Feather Crowns (1993), An Atomic Romance (2005), and The Girl in the Blue Beret (2011).
Mason also published her memoir Clear Springs in 1999.
Mason has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is currently the writer in residence at the University of Kentucky. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/13/2014.)
Book Reviews
Mason has given us a portrait of a man from a generation whose members were uncertain about the protocols of letting oneself feel. And she has lovingly captured the tone of bluff assertion still shared by veterans of that war. Marshall’s banality has the ring of truth; his awkwardness reveals much….The Girl in the Blue Beret is a work of remarkable empathy.
Daniel Swift - New York Times Book Review
Mason has long been considered one of the finest writers of regional fiction—Kentucky is her home and inspiration—but her affecting new novel takes place in France, and she’s just as comfortable and insightful there…once again, Mason has plumbed the moral dimensions of national conflict in the lives of individual participants and produced a deeply moving, relevant novel.
Washington Post
The new novel from best-selling author Bobbie Ann Mason will send you dashing to the shelves to devour everything else she's ever written—it's that good.… Mason weaves a spellbinding tale of war, love and survival. … The Girl in the Blue Beret is not only a remarkable work of historical fiction, it's also storytelling at its best.
Associated Press
Ushering her readers back and forth across the decades, she perfectly weaves history with fiction. In many ways the book is a tribute to these unsung civilians whose heroism often was never acknowledged by those they helped. [A] near-perfect war story.
USA Today
To Curl Up with: A pilot shot down over France returns years later to search for the jeunne fille who rescued him. Mason’s lovely tale, drawn from her [father-in-law’s] wartime experience, will resonate for many.
Good Housekeeping
The Girl in the Blue Beret is an impressive novel. Mason writes with confidence about integrity, memory, love, the war in Europe—and a likeable man.… Recommended for all historical fiction readers.
Historical Novels Review
"[An] impressive, impassioned new novel. The unforgettable story, based on the author’s father-in-law’s wartime experiences, is a gripping tale of redemption." –Miami Herald
[A] touching novel about love, loss, war, and memory. Shot down over France during WWII, Marshall Stone takes the controls and lands the plane, helping as many of his surviving airmen to safety as he can.... [F]ascinating and intensely intimate.
Publishers Weekly
[A] haunting novel [Mason's ] late father-in-law's wartime experiences, and the rich setting, detail, and intimate character nuances ring true. Verdict: Great crossover appeal for fans of the award-winning author, World War II fiction, and novels with French settings. Highly recommended. —Jenn B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll.-Northeast, TX
Library Journal
Mason may surprise fans of her Appalachian stories with this historical novel about a World War II pilot who returns to France to find the families who helped him survive after his plane was shot down 36 years earlier.... Like Marshall himself, the novel maintains a reserved, laconic, even pedantic tone—off-putting at times yet often moving
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the special bond between Allied aviators and their European helpers. Why did it take so long for many of them to reunite after the war?
2. What does flying mean to Marshall? Discuss Marshall’s failed B-17 mission and the effect it had on his life.
3. Re-read and discuss the images of flight throughout the novel. How does the final sentence tie in with these?
4. What is Marshall’s feeling about the young man he remembers as Robert? Does Marshall romanticize him? Why is finding Robert so important to Marshall?
5. Love and war. There are two main love stories in this novel—the younger couple, Annette and Robert, and the mature couple, Annette and Marshall. How are these relationships different from each other? What does war do to love and romance?
6. Why is Marshall so unprepared for what Annette reveals to him? How does he deal with her story? What possibilities lie ahead for him?
7. The name Annette Vallon is inspired by a historical figure, a woman who was William Wordsworth’s lover during the French Revolution and the mother of his illegitimate child. What suggestions are being made by the use of the name here? What else can you learn about Annette Vallon from further research?
8. What do you make of the epigraph by William Wordsworth? Is it appropriate? How does it connect with the use of Annette Vallon’s name?
9. What do mountains mean to Marshall? Trace the importance of mountains at different stages of his life.
10. How does Marshall look back on his war experience? How does his perspective change during the course of the novel?
11. How do the experiences in the book compare with your own experiences of war? Have you ever known anyone captured during wartime?
12. What is meant by second chances in the context of this book?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)