Six Degrees of Separation: From Sandwich to My Coney Island Baby

On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate: Books are my Favourite and Best

This month begins with Catherine Newman‘s Sandwich. It’s a book I enjoyed – with reservations – but let’s concentrate on the basics. This is a smartly delivered story told through the voice of menopausal Rocky as she goes with her husband; her two grown up children; and for part of their week there, her elderly parents to the same -faintly decrepid – house in Cape Cod that they’ve rented every summer for years and years. This gives me my premise for my Six Degrees this month. All my choices will have a marriage embedded in the story – to a greater or lesser degree.

Here’s another American marriage, in Ron Rash‘s The Caretaker. Jacob is called up to fight in the Korean war, and has to leave his pregnant wife Naomi behind. He is from a privileged background, and Naomi most definitely is not. His parents disapprove of the match so much that they set up a subterfuge to ensure that the couple will never see one another again once Jacob returns. Only one person, Jacob’s childhood friend has an idea that something very wrong is taking place. The book quietly presents a story that slowly unfolds when Jacob comes home, invalided out of the war, and believing himself a widower, with a child who never saw life. A cleverly devised plot, which for all its lack of high drama, is suspenseful to the end. My first Ron Rash. But definitely not my last.

Naomi doesn’t feature directly in Rash’s story. The wife in my next choice doesn’t either: Bernhard Schlink‘s The Granddaughter. 1964. A young West Berliner spending time in East Berlin meets a young woman and falls in love. He contrives her escape, marries her. But they do not live happily ever after. She only half heartedly returns his love, is constantly searching for she knows not quite what, and eventually dies in a drunken stupor. Only then does her husband, a bookseller, discover that she’d had a baby whom she’d abandoned before marrying him. The book describes his search for this woman, who must now be well into her 40s, and it results in his taking the woman’s own daughter under his wing and having her visit him for weeks at a time. A tale of complex feelings: getting to understand that the East was not in fact necessarly grateful to be ‘liberated’: that anger, bitterness, political feelings that resulted in the rise of the Far Right in Germany is one of the consequences of the fall of the Berlin Wall. His granddaughter’s father has passed all this anger onto his child, and this plays out in the latter part of this book. A moving and illuminating account of the feelings informing modern German politics.

The division of Germany into East and West was a consequence of World War II, so let’s go to wartime France. Code Name Hélène by Ariel Lawhon. A real fast-moving page-turner, detailing the war time adventures of the real-life Nancy Wake. An Australian, Nancy lived and worked in Europe as a reporter in the years before the war. By 1939, she was in Marseille, and it’s here that her story begins – as far as the book is concerned. The plot however, weaves between her four incarnations as, initially an ambulance driver and people-smuggler for the French resistance: and increasingly, under different guises, as a fully fledged member – and commander even – of the guerilla military arm, in her case in the Auvergne. We are also witness, in Marseille, to the slow-burning yet passionate love affair between herself and Henri which results in their marriage. Her war work drives them physically apart, but does not diminish their love for one another. This work cannot be described as a biography. Lawhon has admitted to some characters being composite, some incidents elided or transposed for the sake of the story. And certainly there are scenes here whose veracity could never be proved: though I am sure the general ‘flavour’ remains accurate. Nancy was unusual in being a female commander in a male world, which brought its own difficulties, and also meant she probably had to be larger-than-life. Henri has his own role in the story. But not until towards the end. Because I already am familiar with much of the history of the French resistance, I found this a fascinating and involving story, and I fairly raced through its (almost) 450 pages.

Let’s stay in France and look at Boxes by Pascal Garnier. I simply don’t know what to make of this. Brice’s wife Emma has disappeared, leaving him to manage alone the move into the countryside which she had wished for. In this book, we witness Brice’s descent into depression and madness. We see his developing odd friendship with his neighbour Blanche. Various intriguing hints are dropped, but never ultimately satisfied. For instance, why does Brice so strongly resemble Blanche’s father? The house, the surrounding countryside are described in unsettling ways. Everything is alien. Brice’s past life. His present life. His career, which he abandons, apparently on a whim. Everything’s on a whim: from his shopping choices to the hole he stoves into the kitchen/dining room wall. It was all a bit like watching a certain kind of French film, and I was bemused, rather than enthusiastic about this book.

Now for another book where it’s a woman who’s centre stage: Water, by John Boyne. We meet a woman in middle years who has just fled to live in a fairly remote Irish island, changed her name and as far as possible her appearance. Why? Only slowly do we find out. Her husband’s crimes reflect on her: the world assumes she had enabled them – and, she believes, one even greater tragedy. She has done her best to vanish. She meets a few characters who are also uncomfortable with their lives, making relationships with some. Slowly she regains the strength of character necessary to reject her husband and to renew her relationship with her daughter. This book deftly charts her slow, but steady steps to recovery.

And for our last book, we’ll return to America, though to (like Boyne) an Irish writer, in Billy O’Callaghan‘s My Coney Island Baby. Michael and Caitlin have been meeting as lovers for one day a month, for a quarter of a century. They are married, but unhappily, to other people. The book explores their time together, on a single day. The day when Michael reveals that his wife has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. And Caitlin will reveal that her husband is likely to be promoted, and will require them both to move to Illinois, almost 1000 miles away. Yet despite their marriages’ fading passion, duty and the constraints of middle age will probably keep them tied to their respective spouses. The book swings between the hotel bedroom where the couple meet, and their past lives which have brought them to where they are now, disappointed by the choices they have made. An achingly poignant exploration of an intense and long-held love, drowned out as darkness falls and duty calls.

So that’s it for this month. A selection of marriages and stories, and ending where we began, in America. Next month we leave earth all together, and read Booker Prize-winning Orbital, by Samantha Harvey.

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Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

58 thoughts on “Six Degrees of Separation: From Sandwich to My Coney Island Baby”

  4. I thought Water was a fascinating book, as were Earth and Fire. I’m now looking forward to Air, coming next year! The other books you’ve listed here all sound appealing as well – apart from Boxes, which I don’t think would be for me.

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  5. Excellent chain. Although Code Name Hélène is probably my least favorite book by Ariel Lawhon it is still a real cracker of a book, and I loved it as well. If you haven’t read her back list, I can promise you that they’re all amazing!

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  7. I always enjoy the web of books you weave. Tempted, but I am on overload. I already have too many books to read, including one from a previous Six Degrees post, I Belong Here, by Anita Sethi. Going to endeavor to make the day count.

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  8. I always enjoy your book reviews and have found some great reads thanks to them. This month I think the book I’m drawn to most is perhaps Code Name Hélène, although The Caretaker also sounds intriguing. I’m already looking forward to next month’s as (thanks to you) I’ve read your starter book!

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  11. Great chain, Margaret! A few that I may read, but what resonated with me was your comments on the Schlink book..,…getting to understand that the East was not in fact necessarly grateful to be ‘liberated’: that anger, bitterness, political  feelings that resulted in the rise of the Far Right in Germany is one of the consequences of the fall of the Berlin Wall””

    I met an elderly winemaker in eastern Germany, and had a conversation about wine which veered off into a lament about the changes resulting from the reunification of Germany….

    Have just ordered The Granddaughter from Audible, so looking forward to a good listen!

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    1. So glad you’re planning on ‘reading’ The Grandddaughter. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. Yes, the East Germany issue is interesting, not at all clear cut, and has definitey contributed to Germany’s current awkward political landscape.

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    2. Dear Sue
      I am from the generation of the student revolution in West Germany. We didn’t want to be united as well as many East Germans didn’t either. I still think the unification was a mistake, economically and especially politically.
      I like most of Schlink’s books, especially ‘The Reader”.
      Happy listen to ‘The Granddaughter’
      Klausbernd 🙂

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      2. The alternative would have been two different countries (like before). For me, the East Germans were much more foreign than the Dutch or Italians f.e. On the other hand, I have some close East German friends nowadays.,

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      4. There are quite some differences in Germany, not only between West and East but between North and South as well. The Bavarians are foreign to me, when they are talking I can hardly understand them. The North and West is much more liberal than the South and the East. The South is very conservative and reactionary.
        Okay, such generalisations are always dodgy but they show a tendency.

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  13. Another wonderful collection of books that I have never heard of before – so many thanks for the introduction. Looking forward to your “2025 selections” for your six degrees of separation. I have loved your 2024 series.

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  16. Nice creating choices again this month. Great to read about Nancy Wake, I like hearing about Australian’s who have done things throughout history.

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  17. Grrr… lost my comment, said I had to be logged in!

    I shall try again. I love the way you create your chains. Out of this lot I fancy Sandwich, because I love Cape Cod. I shall pop into my online library now and see if they have it. Boxes I am definitely not drawn to!

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    1. You’re not the first person to say they had to log in. I don’t know what to do about it, and it happens to me with certain bloggers too. It’s so irritating. Sorry. Nope, not Boxes for you I think, but Sandwich might do the trick.

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  18. Great chain! I haven’t read any of them, but could be tempted to pick up The Caretaker. Currently, I am on the library waitlist for Orbital. If I get it in December, I might join in with next month’s Six Degrees.

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    1. I loved Orbital, wch I managed to get easily and read before it became the Winning Title. Our iterests are very different, but I believe you will like it too. Ron Rash is new to me, and I’ll be looking out for more by him.

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  20. Boxes is perhaps not the best one to start with Pascal Garnier, recommend How’s the Pain? or Moon in a Dead Eye. I’ve heard good things about that Ron Rash book, and I like his style, so will check it out.

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    1. OK, thanks for that. I did feel slightly inadequate not liking the Garnier, when he comes well recommended, so I’l take your advice. And yes, I was glad to have discovered Ron Rash.

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  22. Dear Margaret
    We read Schlink’s ‘The Granddaughter’ and John Boyne’s ‘Water’ and liked both very much. Schlink’s novel is well translated (Kb and Siri read it in German and Dina and Selma in English). Like with Schlink’s books, I read most of Boyne’s books because I like his style.
    Great recommendations
    The Fab Four of Cley
    🙂 🙂 :-):-)

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