Marie Bostwick, River's Edge

River's Edge

Marie Bostwick

Kensington, September 2006, $14.00

ISBN: 0758209916

In Germany, though he loves his daughter Elise deeply, grieving widower Herman Braun fears for her well-being with the recent death of her mother and his beloved wife, especially with war imminent. He sends his cherished Elise to live with his cousins in the United States, for fear of what Hitler is doing to his beloved fatherland and apprehension over her living alone while he is deployed.

Feeling abandoned by her father, though he acted out of love and concern for her, Elise moves in with the Muller family in Massachusetts where she adapts to her new lifestyle quite nicely, but she misses and worries about her dad. When America enters the war, her guardian and his son Junior enlist to fight for the United States, but not before she and Junior become engaged. As she waits for news from both sides in the European Theatre, locally, she is treated as a pariah because of her heritage, with only the piano as her salvation.

RIVER'S EDGE is a superb WWII drama starring real people struggling with difficult personal decisions. Elise holds the tale together as she worries about her father, though upset that he "exiled" her and is concerned with the safety of her guardian and fianc . In Massachusetts she faces prejudice because of her ancestry, adding to her feelings of displacement and wondering whether to go home or stay once the hostilities end. Marie Bostwick brings war to the home front with this deep look at the impact on those loved ones left behind.