Listen to this book review read by Beryl Eichenberger below:
I had left The Listeners by Maggie Steifvater to stew, so to speak, thinking it would be a light, frothy read – to be read in between the tense thrillers. But, oh, how wrong I was. Definitely neither of those assumptions; in fact, it brought a little known (well to me anyway) piece of wartime history to luminous light in a wonderfully constructed story.
This is Steifvater’s first adult novel and, as an artist in several mediums, and a musician, her prose reflects how she sees her environment and what lies underneath. The cover of the book says it all – intricate, mystical, to be carefully looked into. Her research took her five years, she uncovered many stories, revealing heartbreak, choices, and the chilling reality of the Nazi regime’s doctrines and what return to Germany might mean.
You might then ask, “What does a remote luxury hotel in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia have to do with WWll?” It’s 1942 after Pearl Harbour. The USA has joined the war and so there is the question of what to do with the enemy diplomats? Removed from their posts, they had to be held before being deported back to their countries. Several luxury hotels found themselves reluctantly hosting AXIS diplomatic legations. Stiefvater has created one such glamorous and regal hotel, Avallon, where high-ranking Germans, Italians and Japanese were interned under the watchful eye of the State Department’s Agent Tucker Minnick and his team, hosted by the female GM June ’Hoss’ Hudson.
Inherited by playboy, Edgar Gilfoyle, the hotel is peopled by loyal staff, some with their own reasons to fear these guests, but showing its best hospitality face is a given. It’s luxury at its best – a century of tradition as elegant as the service. That was something that rather irked me, these enemies of the state enjoying their status while atrocities were being committed in their country’s names.
But Stiefvater has created an undercurrent of evil, not just through the characters, some whose nefarious plans and every waking move is followed surreptitiously, but through the ripple, drip, splash and torrent of the sweet waters that run under the hotel and down the mountain. Listening. Healing when it wants to be – turning when not…it’s a deliciously clever characterisati… onThe water is something June knows plenty about. A mountain girl brought up alongside the Gilfoyle family; the children her playmates; the father educating her to take over as GM; it’s an interwoven story. She listens to the water as she listens to her guests and her heart. Then there’s the snails, both as a glass gift and crunching underfoot in strange places. There are chilling moments which dig deep as the listening reveals plots, desperation, sadness and choices.
Steifvater creates listeners throughout – through the walls with Agent Minnick, in the halls with innuendo, in code, with the nameless guest in 411, the injured family member. Listening becomes tangible; she surprises her readers, keeps you guessing. Her characters are multilayered, and she adds some surprising twists. All underpinned with a sort of magic that reminded me of Alice Hoffman novels. But Stiefvater has her own distinctive, addictive style. That many of the bizarre instances were taken from records is extraordinary – but desperate times call for desperate measures and, as Steifvater notes: ‘As a novelist I usually have to dramatise reality. In The Listeners, I found myself having to do the opposite.’
A novelist’s dream and a reader’s delight. ●
Maggie Stiefvater is a Jewish American novelist, artist and musician, best known for her teen fantasy novels. She has won several awards for her novels and, before turning to writing, was a portrait painter. Apart from her creative passions she also loves cars! She writes in several genres: fantasy, young adult and historical fiction. The Listeners is her first adult historical fiction novel.
The book is available in all good bookstores and for borrowing from the Jacob Gitlin Library.
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