A further compartmentalization of people, so that one may look at another and say, ‘at least I’m not them.’ By placing in small excerpts from ‘current day’ Margot and Haruko, Hesse maintains the realism while foreshadowing the duality and non-duality which structures the lives of the German and Japanese camps. Their relationship becomes a flickering possibility.
Both are American – regardless of what others say – their families included. Both are prisoners within an American internment camp.
In the end, they struggle with their circumstances. Haruko romanticizes while Margot rationalizes. Hesse’s experience in nonfiction gave way to a beautiful drama unfolding in two tales from two women told decades later. The War Outside tore at me like an ethnography. It walks the border between stark fantasy – in it being ‘real’ only in its lack of speculative elements – and so personal as to leave the reader feeling like a voyeur. Historical fiction has a risk few other genres share. And Margot is doing everything she can to keep her family whole as her mother's health deteriorates and her rational, patriotic father becomes a man who distrusts America and fraternizes with Nazis.With everything around them falling apart, Margot and Haruko find solace in their growing, secret friendship.This was an advanced reader copy for the September 2018 publication. Haruko finds herself consumed by fear for her soldier brother and distrust of her father, who she knows is keeping something from her. The teens discover that they are polar opposites in so many ways, except for one that seems to override all the others: the camp is changing them, day by day and piece by piece. The war seemed far away from Margot in Iowa and Haruko in Colorado-until they were uprooted to dusty Texas, all because of the places their parents once called home: Germany and Japan.Haruko and Margot meet at the high school in Crystal City, a "family internment camp" for those accused of colluding with the enemy.
A stunning novel of conviction, friendship, and betrayal from Monica Hesse, the Edgar Award-winning and bestselling author of Girl in the Blue CoatIt's 1944, and World War II is raging across Europe and the Pacific.
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