REVIEW: All We Thought We Knew by Michelle Shocklee
She was so sure she knew her family’s story . . . Now she wonders if she was wrong about all of it.
1969. When Mattie Taylor’s twin brother was killed in Vietnam, she lost her best friend and the only person who really understood her. Now, news that her mother is dying sends Mattie back home, despite blaming her father for Mark’s death. Mama’s last wish is that Mattie would read some old letters stored in a trunk, from people Mattie doesn’t even know. Mama insists they hold the answers Mattie is looking for.
1942. Ava Delaney is picking up the pieces of her life following her husband’s death at Pearl Harbor. Living with her mother-in-law on a secluded farm in Tennessee is far different than the life Ava imagined when she married only a few short months ago. Desperate to get out of the house, Ava seeks work at a nearby military base, where she soon discovers the American government is housing Germans who they have classified as enemy aliens. As Ava works to process legal documents for the military, she crosses paths with Gunther Schneider, a German who is helping care for wounded soldiers. Ava questions why a man as gentle and kind as Gunther should be forced to live in the internment camp, and as they become friends, her sense of the injustice grows . . . as do her feelings for him. Faced with the possibility of losing Gunther, Ava must choose whether loving someone deemed the enemy is a risk worth taking, even if it means being ostracized by all those around her.
In the midst of pain and loss two women must come face-to-face with their own assumptions about what they thought they knew about themselves and others. What they discover will lead to a far greater appreciation of their own legacies and the love of those dearest to them.
CW
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Dear Ms. Schocklee,
I was drawn to this book because one of the dual timelines centered on the late 1960s and included the Vietnam War which is different from the usual “now” setting. Honestly the parts set during WWII are the ones I enjoyed the most while the 1965/69 sections were … challenging.
Mattie Taylor fled her Tennessee home after her twin brother died in Vietnam. She had been (very) outspoken regarding her feelings about the war and America becoming involved in it before Mark, along with his friend Nash, volunteered for the Marine Corps. When her father sends word to the California free love/drug taking commune where Mattie is now, she arrives home still angry about Mark’s death and the fact that no one told her until now about her mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis.
In the two months before her mother dies, Mattie will need to rethink everything about her family as the truth of her mother’s wartime experiences working in an internment camp near the family farm are revealed.
It’s not that there isn’t a lot of good stuff to unpack and examine in the 1960s sections. A couple of things surprised me, seeing as this is an inspirational book. Mattie went full on “California free love and drugs hippie” for a year. Mattie is very outspoken and argumentative. Her default setting is to come out swinging and confront anyone who doesn’t share her views. It takes very little to set her off. Yet at times – actually many times – Mattie acts like little more than a petulant child. Stomping off, slamming things to show her anger, spouting off at anyone. Mattie can be a pill but she’s certainly also strong willed and willing to speak up which is something that I personally find challenging, so I’ll give her that. There is a lot of character growth in store for Mattie over the course of the book.
Ava Delany is honest about the fact that she liked her “short wartime marriage” husband but she never loved him the way he loved her. At his Pearl Harbor death, she is numbed but not broken-hearted. An ad about jobs at a new Army base/internment camp nearby is a Godsend as it gets Ava away from her disapproving mother-in-law and will bring in needed money. Her growing friendship with a German internee, who was in NYC attending Columbia medical school, becomes a lifeline for Ava. Gunther feels the same about Ava but ashamed of what is going on in his homeland and bitter about how his American dream has been shattered.
Ava’s feelings for her first husband are another surprise but I like her for admitting to them. Gunther’s anger at his internment and later at how certain POW prisoners are allowed to terrorize other inmates is also realistic. Their slow friendship which blossoms into more is the best part of the book for me. There is a romantic relationship for Mattie as well that progresses similarly starting with slight antagonism and moving through slow budding friendship to finally seeing the other for who they really are.
The book is an inspie and there is a lot of religion but this is mainly concentrated in the 1960s part. Mark tried to convince Mattie that he was going to war in order to protect the South Vietnamese much as Dietrich Bonhoeffer tried to fight Nazism. I guess a person then might have felt this way about the Vietnam war but it is a hard sell today. As Mattie’s mother is dying, there is a lot of religion – pro and con – discussed. During the 1940s part, Gunther and his Jewish German doctor mentor spend time discussing religion, mainly to pass the time but
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Mattie begins to change a bit as she and Nash work to assist disabled vets through horse riding therapy, which I think is wonderful, but it also smacks a bit of using a disabled character as a “tool” to change another. Nash is also disabled and for the most part he just lives his new reality. I’m also still thinking about how I feel regarding the final secret revealed at the end of the book. It just doesn’t make sense to me that this was carried on for so long or that this character would have behaved
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The book is a quick read – I zipped through it in a day and a half. The issues are real and not of the piddly variety. But unfortunately I do have some issues with some stuff along the way. B (1940s)/C+ (1960s)
~Jayne
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