A review by tasmanian_bibliophile
Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks

3.5

 

‘It was six o’clock at Waverley Station.’ 

1942. Charlotte Gray is in her mid-twenties when she leaves Scotland for England, hoping to do something meaningful for the war effort. Charlotte takes on a job as a medical receptionist but caught up in the frenetic social life prevalent for some at the time, falls in love with RAF pilot Peter Gregory. 

Shortly after, Peter Gregory fails to return after a flight into France. Charlotte, who spent much of her childhood in France, has just the language skills that the British secret service needs access to, in order to support the French resistance. And so, Charlotte is trained as a messenger. Her hair is dyed, her fillings are replaced as is her clothing. She is to accompany a less fluent French speaker to France and then to deliver items required by the resistance. Charlotte does this but then, instead of returning to England as planned, heads off to look for Peter Gregory.  Charlotte travels further into France. 

Mr Faulks describes life in France under the Nazi Occupation: the hunger, the danger, the varying allegiances of the villagers in Lavaurette. I confess: my attention was less focussed on Charlotte’s search for Peter than on the fate of the two young Jewish boys saved (temporarily) by Julien Levade. Despite this, I became caught up in Charlotte’s quest and while aspects of the story (including Charlotte’s relationship with her father) irritated me I found the story absorbing. 

Jennifer Cameron-Smith