City of Women: A Novel

by David R. Gillham

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Whom do you trust, whom do you love, and who can be saved? A gripping tale of Berlin in the Second World War, from the author of Annelies.

It is 1943—the height of the Second World War. With the men away at the front, Berlin has become a city of women.

On the surface, Sigrid Schröder is the model German soldier’s wife: She goes to work every day, does as much with her rations as she can, and dutifully cares for her meddling mother-in-law, all the while ignoring the horrific immoralities of the regime.

But behind this façade is an entirely different Sigrid, a woman of passion who dreams of her former Jewish lover, now lost in the chaos of the war. But Sigrid is not the only one with secrets—she soon finds herself caught between what is right and what is wrong, and what falls somewhere in the shadows between the two . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425252963
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/07/2013
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	261,515
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David R. Gillham is the New York Times-bestselling author of City of Women. He spent more than a decade in the book business, and now lives with his family in western Massachusetts and is currently working on his second novel.
 

What People are Saying About This

Anderson McKean

Extraordinary...
—Anderson McKean (Page & Palette, Fairhope, AL)

Leslie Reiner

Illuminating...
—Leslie Reiner (Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL)

Leigh Barnes

Riveting...
—Leigh Barnes (The Book Bin, Onley, VA)

From the Publisher

"You haven't experienced such gray skies since season 1 of The Killing, but the feel is all Casablanca. I can't wait for Gillham's next novel—play it again, Sam." —Stephen King

"The writing is a great mix of the literary and commercial, page-turning and suspenseful, with a morally complex, intelligent heroine at its center. If you’re a fan of well-written historical novels in the vein of Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, this one is for you."--Slate

“If you enjoy beautiful storytelling, gripping suspense, and distractingly romantic plot, this is the book for you! An exciting page-turning read!”—Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of The Kitchen House

“A thriller of searing intensity that asks the most urgent of questions—how to love, who to trust, what can be saved in the very darkest of times. I found it utterly compelling.” —Margaret Leroy, New York Times bestselling author of The Soldier’s Wife

“In this moving and masterful debut, David Gillham brings war-torn Berlin to life and reveals the extraordinary mettle of women tested to their limits and beyond. Powerful and piercingly real. You won’t soon forget these characters.”—Paula McLain, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife

“[A] stunning debut . . . Transcendent prose.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“As impossible to put down as it is to forget.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A terrifically tense first novel."—The Times

Interviews

Watch, Listen, Eat

An essay by David R. Gillham

One way I tried to build the atmosphere of Sigrid's Berlin was by introducing wartime movies, music, and food into the narrative. Of course, when Sigrid attends the cinema, it not really to watch a movie. She's looking for a small space of privacy, which is why she favors war movies. These didn't do very well at the box office in Berlin; the audiences for them were usually sparse. The average Berliner was less interested in seeing propaganda films such as Soldiers of Tomorrow than Heinz Rühmann in escapist fare such as The Gas Man, or Gustaf Gründgens in a lavish eighteenth-century costume drama. For more recent movies that capture either the essence of Berlin or the stunning contradictions of the war years, I'd recommend Cabaret and Europa, Europa.

You can still find a lot of popular music from the time period. In the book, Sigrid's mother-in-law is listening to Lale Andersen singing on the radio. Andersen's number-one wartime success was the ubiquitous “Lili Marleen”—a song that created such a stir that even British forces fighting in North Africa adopted it as one of their favorite tunes.

Naturally, classical music was still at the top of German radio playlists during the war: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach—though the music of all Jewish composers was banned from the airwaves. If you're interested in the antic, often slightly loopy music of pre-Nazi Berlin, which Sigrid would have listened to while growing up, there are still recordings available of entertainers such as Margo Lion, the famously hilarious cabaret singer, or the popular ensemble known as the Comedian Harmonists. Marlene Dietrich was “falling in love again” in the golden twenties and early thirties, and later recorded a number of her songs from the era in English. The internationally acclaimed chanteuse Ute Lemper has released renditions of cabaret songs that were all the rage in Berlin between the wars, in both English and the original German (“Ich Bin ein Vamp!” for example). Max Raabe and the Palast Orchester are phenomenal at re-creating the music of that time (from “Fräulein, Pardon” to “Mein Gorilla.”)

For those interested in what the average Berlin Hausfrau was serving at the table during the war, I recommend Gisela McBride's Memoirs of a 1000-Year-Old Woman. Her autobiography stretches from the late twenties to the war's end, and is chock-full of details illuminating everyday life, including recipes. (I cannot vouch for the healthfulness of any of these dishes, or the taste, but if you need recipes for cabbage dumplings, cabbage fish rolls, cabbage pie, or cabbage strudel, you'll find them there).

Editorial Reviews

I can’t wait for Gillham’s next novel—play it again, Sam.”
—Stephen King

“The writing is a great mix of the literary and commercial, page-turning and suspenseful, with a morally complex, intelligent heroine at its center. If you’re a fan of well-written historical novels in the vein of Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, this one is for you.”
—Slate

“Philip Kerr and Alan Furst have outdone their literary counterparts. Now, with his first novel, City of Women, David R. Gillham joins their rank.”
—Charles Finch, USA Today

“Gillham’s writing is often stunning . . . The characters are complex . . . Deeply felt and mercilessly real.”
—The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

“A meticulously researched and beautifully told love story—and a remarkable look at life in Germany during World War II.”
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“[A] stunning debut . . . Transcendent prose.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“As impossible to put down as it is to forget.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“An exemplary model of historical fiction generously laced with romance, suspense, and exciting plot twists.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

“A thriller of searing intensity that asks the most urgent of questions—how to love, who to trust, what can be saved in the very darkest of times. . . . Utterly compelling.”
—Margaret Leroy, New York Times bestselling author of The Soldier’s Wife

“A moving and masterful debut . . . Powerful and piercingly real. You won’t soon forget these characters.”
—Paula McLain, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife

From the Publisher

In this stunning debut about the battle between good and evil, Gillham puts a fresh spin on the horrors of WWII by focusing on civilian German women to reveal that, amid the many adherents of the party line there were a handful of unsung heroes. We first meet Sigrid Schröder in 1943. She is an unassuming stenographer stuck in a loveless marriage and living in Berlin with her sour, difficult mother-in-law. But her life is not as common as it seems, for she has a lover, a Jewish lover, and if that were not risky enough, Sigrid becomes entangled with a neighbor who is helping to shelter Jews. As the war progresses, and Sigrid’s husband is sent to the Russian front, she’s drawn deeper into a world where trust is a hard-won commodity. The line between what is “right” and “wrong” becomes harder to define as Sigrid, confronted with increasingly more horrifying realities, finds her resolve constantly tested. Gillham’s transcendent prose (“Looking into her eyes is like staring thorough the windows of a bombed-out building”; “The words both murdered her and made her whole”), powerfully drawn characters, and the multilayered dilemmas make his first literary effort a powerful revelation. Agent: Rebecca Gradinger, Fletcher & Company. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

In his debut about 1943 Berlin, Gillham uses elements common to the many previous movies and books about World War II—from vicious Nazis to black marketeers to Jewish children hiding in attics to beautiful blond German women hiding their sexuality inside drab coats—yet manages to make the story fresh. The blond beauty is Sigrid, a stenographer living alone with her unpleasant mother-in-law while her husband, Kaspar, serves on the eastern front. Sigrid's Berlin is a grim city full of suspicious, fearful citizens barely coping with shortages and almost nightly air raids, people not above turning each other over to the Gestapo for unpatriotic behavior. But Sigrid is mostly consumed in pining not for Kaspar but for Egon, the Jewish black markeeter with whom she carried on a passionate affair before he went into hiding. At first, Sigrid resists when Ericha, a rebellious teenager living in her building, involves her in an underground network hiding Jews, but iconoclast Sigrid soon finds that her experience as Egon's occasional "bagman" serves her well as she delivers supplies and humans to a safe house. At the same time, she befriends new neighbors, two sisters and their wounded-officer brother, Wolfram, whose impeccable German credentials are not what they seem. Sigrid finds herself wondering if a particular Jewish woman with two daughters in hiding might be Egon's wife. But when Egon reappears in her life, she doesn't bring up her suspicions. Instead she hides him in her neighbors' apartment, an awkward situation given that she has recently begun what she considers a purely sexual affair with Wolfram. The wounded and embittered Kaspar's return only complicates the situation. With her underground activities as intricate as her love life, Sigrid can trust no one, yet must trust a dangerously wider circle of acquaintances until the hold-your-breath suspense ending. World War II Germany may be familiar ground, but Gillham's novel—vividly cinematic yet subtle and full of moral ambiguity, not to mention riveting characters—is as impossible to put down as it is to forget.

Kirkus Reviews