Anna, daughter of Peggy who was a close friend of Eva Braun in Germany, comes across the pages of her mother’s loose-leaf diary that begins pre-war with Peggy’s first meeting with Eva the shopgirl who has a passion for photography.
The best historical fiction, of which this book is one, is a compelling story informed by thorough research. To render the innermost thoughts of people who actually lived, with the right pitch and timbre to convincingly pull the reader into their world, is literary artistry. Phyllis Edgerly Ring accomplishes this, masterfully inserting us into the reality of the time, locations, events of Eva, Hitler, wartime Germany. We are there.
This is the story of Eva Braun, Hitler’s invisible woman, and the story of Eva’s friendship with Peggy. It’s also the story of Anna fifty years later, peeling back layers of mystery surrounding Peggy and the painting of Eva that had always hung in their living room when Anna was growing up. There are a couple of riveting encounters with Hitler, but the book is not principally about him.
At its heart, The Munich Girl is two intriguing love stories in different times. In addition to the story of Eva and Hitler, as seen through the eyes of Peggy, there is Anna fifty years later. Peggy’s daughter is a betrayed and put-aside wife who develops a closeness with her editor, Hannes. Her and Hanne’s growing relationship is interwoven in Anna’s search for her family’s connection to Eva, as well as Hanne’s own family history in wartime Germany. Going back and forth between the two eras begins to reveal startling connections between Anna, Hannes and the people at the very center of the tragedy that was Nazi Germany.
The 1940s in Germany is like a train wreck from which you can’t avert your eyes, and we’ve seen the newsreels of mesmerized masses seig-heiling Hitler’s motorcade. Ring gives us the hearts and minds of “the other Germany,” the traumatized, exhausted, terrorized, starving Germany and the people whose existence was one of scurrying back and forth between bomb shelters and food lines. “In order to know whether your bread was buttered,” Peggy records in her diary, “you had to hold it up to the light, where its shine would show you it was.”
Testimony at Nuremberg revealed that Eva Braun had diverted Hitler’s final order to execute the Amereican and European POWs, and thus saved thousands of lives. She had access and did not suffer rationing, but neither was she oblivious. She was a lonely and perhaps needy woman who lived the two-edged blessing/curse of being the Führer's favorite.
Phyllis Edgerly Ring creates her characters in three dimensions. She lets them breathe and get on with their lives. And then she does a spot-on job of being a fly on the wall, observing everything with great clarity. Ring’s prose style is rich, layered and captivating, and I found myself going back to re-read or highlight a sentence or paragraph I thought really nailed it. I don’t usually read a novel twice, but I am already a third of the way through my second round of The Munich Girl.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
Customers who bought this item also bought
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Top reviews from other countries
Dave
Anna's history isn't like yours.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 5, 2018
Susanne Weigand
An uplifting (and in parts sad) story
Reviewed in Germany on March 13, 2016