"War was declared at eleven-fifteen and Mary North signed up at noon," begins Everyone Brave Is Forgiven, the magnificent and profoundly moving fourth novel by Chris Cleave (Little Bee). Mary and those closest to her embody the complicated, contradictory qualities of young people facing the incomprehensible. They are impetuous, brave, principled and sometimes foolish. They are, above all, human and loved.
Cleave draws from his grandparents' courtship amid the ravages of World War II in London and Malta to tell the story of Mary North, the idealistic 18-year-old daughter of an ambitious politician and his aristocratic wife. When war breaks out, Mary dreams of being a spy, but is assigned to teach school. It is a position below her station but she becomes passionate about her students. When the children are evacuated to the English countryside, Mary persuades Tom, an education administrator, to give her a class of forgotten children to teach--those who are handicapped, or black, or who refuse to leave or are rejected by their host families. The experience awakens in her indignation at the casual racism and elitism of her peers, and sparks a love affair with Tom, who has decided to remain in London to teach while his best friend and flatmate, Alistair, enlists. Tom is sweet and dependable but no match for Mary's spirited convictions. Their mismatch is compounded by their class differences and their youth and, later, by Mary and Alistair's mutual attraction, after meeting while Alistair is on leave. But it is wartime. They are both loyal to Tom, and Alistair is stationed in Malta. Mary and Alistair deepen their friendship through letters that are funny and sweet, written from the comfort of upper-class London and the horrors and deprivation of besieged Malta. It's a suppressed love triangle that underscores the fractured, emotionally charged atmosphere of life in the midst of war for civilians and soldiers alike.
Cleave writes his characters with immense compassion, despite the very different worlds they occupy. Mary and Alistair eagerly sign up for their respective war efforts with the soaring, adventuresome idealism of youth, and Tom tries hard to do the right thing for his students. Their naïve decisions at times result in awful consequences, but they are the choices of profoundly decent people. In the end, these flawed but unforgettable characters come to know that bravery is not just what happens on the battlefield; to live and to love requires it, too. --Jeanette Zwart, freelance writer and reviewer
Shelf Talker: This dazzling novel of World War II is full of unforgettable characters and the keen emotional insights that moved readers of Chris Cleave's Little Bee.