Story for the Perpetually Angry One
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008Island of Saints by Andy Andrews
I picked this book up, not knowing whether it was fiction or nonfiction, and just started reading. A wonderful story, either way, it begins with a discovery on an island off the Alabama coast. Digging in his garden, the author finds mysterious relics, which after some Internet research, he discovers are Nazi memorabilia, and a photo of a young family from that era.
This intrigues him enough so that he begins a quest to find out about these people, and the history of the place he now lives. Nazis in Alabama? That was certainly not in any history curriculum in his school.
The journey he takes unfolds back in the 1940s and jumps forward to today, but does so pretty smoothly. The main character of the “back story” is a very angry young woman, a stranger in this small-town Alabama world. And in the process of the story, and the valuable lesson it teaches, I am told (and checked the back cover to verfiy) that it is a ’self-help” book. I don’t normally read that genre recreationally, but this one was different. The narrative flows right along, the “lesson” comes pretty subtly, and all in all it is a delightful little book. In fact it is such a lovely little book that I am sending a copy to a very angry young woman I know today, in hopes that she’ll not only enjoy the story, but maybe find a better way to deal with her own anger. Regardless, the book also teaches a bit of history that is not in textbooks, and that paints a picture not in black and white, but in the many shades of gray that exist in the time of war. Interesting and apropos of today’s world for many …