Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France

Summary (from the publisher): When Nicholas Shakespeare stumbled across a trunk full of his late aunt's personal belongings, he was unaware of where this discovery would take him and what he would learn about her hidden past. The glamorous, mysterious figure he remembered from his childhood was very different from the morally ambiguous young woman who emerged from the trove of love letters, journals and photographs, surrounded by suitors and living the precarious existence of a British citizen in a country controlled by the enemy.

As a young boy, Shakespeare had always believed that his aunt was a member of the Resistance and had been tortured by the Germans. The truth turned out to be far more complicated.

Review: I received an Uncorrected Proof copy of this book from HarperCollins.

Priscilla is the result of Nicholas Shakespeare's research about his mysterious aunt, who survived World War II in occupied France. As a child, Shakespeare knew his aunt as a glamorous, languorous woman who placated a demanding and possessive husband while living on his mushroom farm. She was beautiful and enigmatic. Rumors swirled about her life in the early 1940s, yet little was known. After her death, Shakespeare decided to uncover the truth of Priscilla's experiences in World War II.

Priscilla was the result of a very unhappy marriage between Doris and Stuart Petre Brode "SPB" Mais, a famous radio personality and author. SPB and Doris' marriage did not survive Priscilla's childhood, and she grew up split between two households, feeling rejected by her father whom she adored, and ridiculed by her impatient and selfish mother. Her father quickly had a second family and two more daughters with his common-law wife, Winnie. The author is the son of one of those daughters from SPB's second union.

It seems as if Priscilla's beauty and charm made her appealing to a great many men. She had many admirers and lovers throughout her life. She met her first husband, Vicomte Robert Doynel De La Sausserie while traveling to try to obtain an abortion that resulted from her first failed love affair. Robert was impotent throughout their marriage, however, Priscilla maintained contact with him throughout her life, and seemed to see the much older Robert as the father she felt she never had.

During the war, Robert was sent to the front, leaving Priscilla on his French estate in the care of his family. However, when the Germans invaded France, the Englishwoman living in their midst quickly became a risk and Priscilla was sent alone to Paris. Priscilla was eventually sent to an internment camp at Besancon in 1940 with other non-French women rounded up from France. Conditions were horrible - hygiene was non-existent, they were forced to wear blood stained military coats that were formerly the belongings of French soldiers who died in the First World War, and she was housed in a room with 48 other women. "Her gums turned black from the diet. She lost 30 pounds and stopped menstruating. Her grim face, thin and dirt-streaked, was covered in blue marks from her bedsack and red bites" (194). Priscilla was eventually released under the guise that she was pregnant.

It is at this point in Priscilla's tale that her story becomes suspect. She is involved with a myriad number of men for the remainder of WWII, at least one of which was a German very closely ranked to Hitler. He may have been "the prominent Nazi official believed by Gillian to have been responsible for naming and enforcing the 'Otto' list, in which the works of authors like Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf and Margaret Mitchell were proscribed and pulped as 'undesirable'" (288). In one confusing chapter, it is revealed that Priscilla, who was sleeping with the married Daniel Vernier while being friends with and using the identity of his wife Simone, fell in love with her lover Daniel's married brother-in-love, Pierre. Pierre and Priscilla both hoped to get divorced and have a daughter together, who they referred to as 'Carole.' Although remarkable, it was wartime, and Priscilla was the product of an unhappy childhood and was deeply lost and troubled, in addition to fighting for her survival. "Nothing would surprise me in the war. Absolutely nothing. It's a question of survival. You never knew who you were going to meet and you lived from day to day. I'm sure that you would have collaborated if you had wanted to live" (289).

My greatest frustration with this book were the segues into detailed biographical descriptions of minor characters, including most of Priscilla's men. The worst part about Priscilla's very active love life was that it made it difficult to keep up with as a reader, and I was somewhat confused about which man was which at times. This book may benefit from a character list, since these individuals are not as near and dear to the reader's heart as they are to the author, who has a personal, familial stake in keeping track of everyone. Also, (and this may change in the final copy of the book) I was frustrated by the inclusion of frequent French lines with no translations.

Priscilla's life seems to be one that is largely unfulfilled and deeply unhappy. An alcoholic and in poor health near the end of her life, Priscilla never achieved two of her greatest dreams: to have children of her own and to publish her writing. Additionally, Priscilla was haunted by her past, and did not confide the full extent of her life in Occupied France to anyone. "Once, Priscilla was rereading Candide and noticed she was eating all the time, and realized that she had read the novella in a state of semi-starvation in Besancon. There were triggers she tried to avoid - being jostled in the Underground or anyone in uniform" (377). Although Priscilla's life seems to be entirely morally ambiguous and full of disappointments and unrealized dreams, she did survive. She left a paper trail to reveal her story, raised two step-children, and although she was never published, her story and her words are now published for the world to see.

Review: 3