There is nothing predictable about “Resistance.” Not the premise, not the characters, not the circumstances that drive their actions. Owen Sheers has crafted a debut that is a richly textured and fully consistent work of historical fiction.
Sheers starts with an alternate outcome to World War II, one in which the invasion at Normandy failed and the German counterattack succeeded. It’s not the first time such a history has been imagined, but rarely does it serve as a backdrop to such an intimate story.
Sarah Lewis, 26, rarely oversleeps; life in the farming valley of Olchon, in South Wales, is too hard, there is too much to do. By the time she wakes, the indentation of her husband’s body in their mattress has grown cold. She knows that something is not right but it takes her time, it takes all of the women in the valley time, to come to grips with the facts. In November 1944, following news of the German invasion, their husbands have left.
The population in the valley is sparse; the male contingent totals seven. The women left behind struggle to grapple with an unbelievable reality, that the men have left to become members of the resistance. But “none of them were fighting men. William was in his late fifties and Hywel and Reg couldn’t have been far behind him. Malcolm walked with a limp, dragging his club foot like a ball and chain. Jack, Tom and John were younger, it was true, but they’d been farmers all their lives. They’d hardly ever left the valley except for the market or the occasional farm sale. Sarah could count on one hand the nights Tom had spent away from the farm. They were not soldiers.”
The women join together, led by Maggie Jones as the senior presence. They agree to keep the men’s absence a secret and to work together to keep their farms going.
About the time the men leave, Capt. Albrecht Wolfram of the 14th Panzergrenadier Division receives a telegram from the SS. He is being called away from the front lines, asked to select five men to join him in a patrol for as-yet-unspecified duty. Fluent in English, he’d hoped to leave the battlefield for a safer job, perhaps translating documents in some bureaucratic back room.
Watching the six-man patrol arrive in Abergavenny is George Bowen. Recruited by British Intelligence in 1940, the young man has spent the past four years waiting to be of use. He’d been told his life expectancy after the invasion, if it came, would be about two weeks. He’s determined to live up to the expectation of resistance and to make sure that those around him do, as well.
Albrecht and his patrol are heading to Olchon. The men have been gone about a month the evening he arrives and makes the rounds of the farms, finding only women. Sarah answers his knock with the illogical hope that her husband, Tom, is returning. But she finds Albrecht, who explains, “I am in command of a patrol unit of the German army. I am here to inform you that myself and my men have established an observation post in your area.” They expect to be there for a couple of weeks.
Maggie meets with the captain, making it clear that “They would not give the Germans anything. Food, supplies, of any kind . . . She would make sure that everyone in the valley stayed away from (them) . . . in return, she wanted the captain’s assurance again that he and his men would leave them undisturbed and allow them to get on with their work of running the farms.”
The captain agrees, and the bargain holds until a blizzard essentially amputates Olchon from the outside world. Then, the soldiers mobilize to help the women rescue their livestock. As time passes and they find themselves absorbed in the task of winter survival, the soldiers find themselves unwilling to leave the peace that is far-removed from the battles that rage outside the valley.
Unusual alliances grow from necessity, and it is clear that spring will bring more problems than even the unusually harsh winter. On one hand, it seems that the Germans care more about the women of the valley than the husbands who’ve left them behind. And on the other, collaboration is seen as the most unforgivable of sins.
Sheers is at his best in capturing the harsh daily realities in the Welsh valley, and the tentative but growing trust between the Germans and the women. He’s juggling a lot of characters, though, and at times it is hard to keep them all straight. Also, the plot line built around George Bowen often feels like a distraction. Though he is a stand-in for the outside world, and key to the novel’s climax, his world is less vibrant than the one inside the valley.
That said, “Resistance” works far more than it does not. The combination of two unimaginable realities, “a peaceful German occupation . . . against Churchill’s tyrannical democracy,” and women deserted by their men to go it alone, makes for fine tension.
And Sheers’ language is nuanced and lyric, fully evoking the daily desperation combined with the need to keep moving forward. It’s a lovely debut, one that puts the reader squarely into wondering how one would react in the same circumstances.
Robin Vidimos is a freelance writer who reviews books for The Denver Post and Buzz in the ‘Burbs.
Fiction
Resistance, by Owen Sheers, $23.95
