#15 The Last Day of the War by Judith Claire Mitchell

I am happy to inform everyone that I recently was admitted to the UW Madison MFA Creative Writing program. The director of the program is one Judith Claire Mitchell. When the good news came to me I decided to read her book. Will she read this book report? I don't know. Will I still attempt to be as forthright as possible? Sure, but I'll also try to be highly rational so as not to, you know, seem irrational to an impending mentor.


This is the story of a young Jewish girl who joins the YMCA war workers in the twilight of the first World War after falling in love with an Armenian-American soldier who is about to embark on a plot of vengeance against the Turkish perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. She makes a best friend, finds the soldier in Paris and their love affair ensues in the so-recently tumultuous landscape of post-war Europe.

I hate to make external excuses for any book, but I've been having a rough two weeks. Most of my reading of this book took place in the dressing room of a theater where I have spent more hours than I care to remember in anticipation of a 5 minute role which may or may not be enabling me to offend any Pakistanis who might venture into a performance. This being Minnesota, I will take some comfort in the unlikelihood of such a multiracial audience. I'm mad at the play for disrupting my reading time, and I'm mad at the book for not engaging me more passionately.

I had some difficulties with the historical context as well. All I knew about the Armenian-Turkish conflict I learned from They Might Be Giants. I found the main character Yael (who changes her name to Yale to pass for an Episcopalian and join the YMCA [she researches her new religion by going to funeral services]) interesting enough. She has that whimsical naivete that is so charmingly exacerbated by a slightly more deviant cohort, which is exactly what she gets. Yael and her best friend Brennan's misadventures were by far the most enjoyable sections of the book.

The plot (subplot?) suffers from an unfortunate similarity to Munich, although the vengeance in Last Day seemed so much more theoretical and leisurely. Probably had something to do with Munich being a movie and its conflict being still very present in the news cycle.

Still, on the whole, I enjoyed this book, there were some really outstanding passages. A discussion of "Mistheism" the belief in and hatred of God. And a lesson in where Jewish names came from; a revelation still too fresh for me to have determined its thematic importance.

I will be recommending this book to my Grandma and anyone else who enjoys historical fiction.

posted by Gabe @ 5:25 PM