The Girl in The Blue Beret is more than a good story and a fine novel. Bobbie Ann Mason’s effort is a noteworthy exposé of and a touching tribute to the men and women who helped downed, American fliers during a world war. Its very title evokes a sense of mystery, aloofness, and grand deception.
If books can be written in four-part harmony, then The Girl in The Blue Beret is one of them. It is one part memoir, one part mystery, one part unitive, and one part touching love story.
The book was inspired by the wartime experiences of the author’s late father-in-law and is an impressive novel about an American pilot shot down in occupied Europe during World War II.
A brief synopsis finds Marshall Stone, a retired airline pilot, returning to Belgium in the 1980s. He visits the site where, at age 23, he crash-landed his B-17 in 1944 in what seemed a different life. Still, memories lingered. From Belgium, the story unfolds as Stone retraces his escape through occupied France, trying to find the men and women, the organized underground resistance, who aided his clandestine dodge. However, for Stone, an unforgettable image is a young girl in a blue beret. Her name is Annette and it haunts him and pushes him onward in his journey.
The young teenager, more than any other, is the person, the ‘guide girl,’ who led him through Paris toward his escape into Spain and eventual safety back in England. Who was the girl? Her ultimate fate gnaws at Stone.
In flashback form, you will relive those frantic moments after the fiery crash, the guilt Stone felt leaving his wounded crewmates as he fled into the woods to escape German troops, and the fear of being alone in a foreign country having to rely on strangers whom he had to trust despite an obvious language barrier.
You will travel with Stone as he retraces his movements, analyzes his life, and remembers the kindness of ordinary citizens who, as part of the organized resistance, risked their lives to save the aviators who were fighting for their freedom.
In his conversations with Annette, Stone learns that she and her mother, along with others who helped him, were sent to forced labor camps in Germany just weeks after he escaped. The descriptive scenes in the concentration camps are reminiscent of those in Herman Wouk’s War and Remembrance and Leon Uris’ Armageddon.
Courage abounds in The Girl in the Blue Beret on different levels: Stone’s courage to face his past, the courage of the simple families who helped the aviators, and the courage of Annette, who was victimized by the Gestapo.
At times Annette’s story is too much for Stone to bear, but he does. He realizes his family, good life, and his successes were the silent benefactors of daring human beings like Annette.
As Bobbie Ann Mason explains it, Stone’s “search becomes a wrenching odyssey of discovery that threatens to break his heart—and also sets him on a new course for the rest of his life. In his journey, he finds astonishing revelations about the people he knew during the war—none more electrifying and inspiring than the story of the girl in the blue beret.” Stone’s odyssey soon becomes Annette’s story, one of heartfelt sadness and divine fortitude.
In my experience, new life and new joy often evolve when one revisits the past. Without providing a spoiler, such goodness is not without its grace in The Girl in the Blue Beret. Here’s one touching line: “Annette had sheltered him; now maybe he could assist her. He looked ahead to helping her bear witness.”
Read this book. Based on my experiences there, Mason captures Paris, the customs of its people, and the magnificent beauty of the French countryside in a striking way. Her dialogue is reminiscent of Hemingway, always a noteworthy attribute. There are even flashbacks about Stone’s life in the Cincinnati-and-Northern-Kentucky area.
You can learn more about the author, from Mayfield here.
Donald Then, a novelist and experienced editor and journalist, is NKyTribune’s literary editor. He will review books written by local authors or those with a Northern Kentucky setting. Reach him at author@djamesthen.com Visit his website at www.djamesthen.com.