OUT OF THE SHELTER

by David Lodge ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 7, 1989

Before Englishman Lodge became well-known stateside For his dead-eye sendups of academic life (see above), he published a number of soberly realist fictions, including this one, first printed in England in a much adulterated version in 1970. a revised version in 1986, and now for the first time in the US. As he explains in an afterword, it's his most autobiographical work--a story of coming-of-age in postwar Britain. In tact, though, Timothy Young doesn't really come of age until he leaves England to visit his older sister in Germany, where she works for the American occupational forces. A short early section (reminiscent of the recent film Hope and Glory) provides his boy's-eye-view of London during the bombing so that readers can appreciate the context for the question underpinning the narrative: Why doesn't Timothy's sister Kath ever return to England on her vacations? Like her bright little brother, Kate (as her Yank friends rechristen her) is a product of the Catholic lower-middle-class and learns early on that postwar England presents few opportunities for someone without Timothy's promise for scholarship. First working for the Americans in England, she glimpses a better life, one unaffected by British scarcity and rationings. She follows her employers to France and Germany, as Timothy later learns on his summer visit to Heidelberg in 1951, in order to remake herself in the American image. Which means, Timothy quickly sees, not only forgetting her bleak past, but enjoying the prosperity of all American personnel in Germany. While Kate's glamorous friends--who include a witty homosexual couple, and some extravagant New Yorkers--gallivant through the German countryside, Timothy notices the darker realities of a beaten people. And his new friend Don, an American planning on studying in England on the G.I. bill, further tutors him in the war's horrors. An epilogue set years later provides a useful gloss on Timothy's fateful summer, and smartly demonstrates the indelible shadow cast by war over those who endure it.

Pub Date: Aug. 7, 1989

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Penguin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1989

Categories: FICTION