The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys was a final list for Canada's Governor General Award. I am more impressed each time I read a novel by Humphreys, and this is her best so far. Rich and memorable, it follows six characters for a brief period during, and after, the Second World War.
James Hunter has been shot down on his first mission, and spends his days in a German POW camp slightly bewildered by his place in the war, not having dropped a single bomb. Organizing his time as before, he begins a study of the Redstarts building a nest outside the fence, while his fellow inmates continually plot tunnelled escapes. The Kommandant of the camp is also a bird watcher and takes an interest in James studies.
Rose married James on the eve of his deployment, but finds now she has feelings only for Toby. She is planning to ask James for a divorce when his sister Enid arrives having nowhere to go after being bombed out of her London townhouse. The two women do not get along, and after Enid reads James' letters about the Redstarts, she spends her time away from the discomforts war time life inflicts with her own scientific nature studies around nearby Ashdown Forest. The next section follows them up after the war in 1950.
Humphreys writing is clean and light, conveying exactly the right emotion. This is a story of people outside of the war around them. James mentally removes himself from the dangers of the camp, where you could be killed without reason, or taken away forever. Indeed, when the Commandant takes James out of the camp one day, he faces the trauma he will be killed.
The most interesting section is about the Kommandant, simply a German scholar removed from his University life to run the POW camp. Shocked by the violence of war, he does his best to maintain a calm control. As a gesture of friendship towards James and his birdwatching, he takes James out of the camp one day into the beauty of the forest.
It's hard to review a book you enjoyed so much. Humphreys has created great characters and turned them in surprising ways. One for me was reading halfway through they were living in Forest Row near East Grinstead, two places I've spend several summers - a real treat.
Humphreys adds in an author's note that several instances were based on actual events, including a prisoner who wrote one of the most comprehensive single-species studies ever undertaken.
I highly recommend The Evening Chorus - to anyone who loves a good read and great writing.
One of the best I've read in a long time.
My other reviews for Helen Humphreys:
2015 / Tradeback / 294 pages
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