Resistance

by Anita Shreve

Overview

A tale of impossible love in Nazi-occupied Belgium, where forbidden passions have catastrophic consequences.
Claire Daussois, the wife of a Belgian resistance worker, shelters a wounded American bomber pilot in a secret attic hideaway. As she nurses him back to health, Claire is drawn into an affair that seems strong enough to conquer all--until the brutal realities of war intrude, shattering every idea she ever had about love, trust, and betrayal.
Resistance is a tender but tragic love story, told with the same narrative grace and keen eye for human emotion that have distinguished all of Anita Shreve's cherished bestsellers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316045704
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	11/16/2008
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	400,737
File size:	966 KB

About the Author

Anita Shreve is the acclaimed author of more than a dozen novels, including A Change in Altitude, Testimony; her best-known book, The Pilot’s Wife, which was a selection of Oprah’s Book Club; and The Weight of Water, which was a finalist for England’s Orange prize. Her book Resistance was turned into a movie with the same name. She is a writer who combines seemingly effortless prose with riveting storytelling.

Hometown:

New Hampshire; Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

1946

Education:

B.A., Tufts University

Website:

http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/41/239/index.html

Editorial Reviews

As in her earlier novels, Shreve (Eden Close) affectingly explores themes of love and loss with piercing clarity, once again capturing the fragile emotions of those in pain. Here, however, she moves from her customary domestic, contemporary milieu to WWII Europe-to the Belgian village of Delahaut, where young Claire Daussois and her husband, Henri, are members of an underground resistance movement. When a British plane goes down outside the town in December 1943, the plucky 10-year-old Jean Benoit finds a survivor, Ted Brice, hides him in his father's barn and then summons the aid of Mme. Daussois. As she has done with other refugees, Claire shelters the 22-year-old captain in her attic. When it becomes necessary for Henri to go into hiding, Claire and Ted embark on a brief affair, a passionate liaison made more poignant by its simultaneous inevitability and futility. With deceptive simplicity and superb control, Shreve evokes the impersonal horrors of wartime and its heartbreaking personal tragedies-often combining those elements to almost overwhelming effect, as when Jean witnesses the execution of several townspeople as reprisal for their resistance activities.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

YA-In December 1943, an American fighter plane is downed near a small village in Belgium. The pilot, Lt. Ted Brice, is rescued by a member of the local resistance movement. As he is hidden in the small attic at the home of Claire Daussois, he becomes acutely aware of the danger to himself as well as his hostess and her husband. A bond develops between Claire and Ted during his 20-day stay that changes both of their lives forever. Through this fast-paced novel, YAs will gain insight into the unthinkable horrors of World War II-German retribution, village collaborators, and local resistance workers. Shreve describes the landscape and the local residents in such detail that readers will quickly become involved in the lives of the characters.-Roberta Lisker, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA

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