“The one picture that caught my attention was of a beautiful blond woman, petite with fine features that the camera adored … I had no idea who the woman was in the photo, but the man was my father.”
Aimee K. Runyan, “Across The Winding River”
Beth Cohen is the forty-year-old daughter of Max Blumenthal, a ninety-year-old veteran of World War II. Max lives in a nursing home in San Diego and the doctors haven’t given him many more months. Wanting to make the most of the time they have left together, Beth decides to surprise Max by retrieving a box of wartime memorabilia he has kept stored away. Her hope is to spend time with him reminiscing over the box’s contents while documenting the stories behind each of the photos. One photo, however, stands out among the rest. It is a photo of Max with a beautiful young German girl who was noticeably pregnant. Who was this mysterious young woman? More importantly, why had Max never mentioned her in all these years.
It is 1944 when Max, serving as a medic on the Western Front, first encounters the beautiful young Margarethe, disguised as a boy, seeking medical help for a wounded friend. Unable to deny her request for help, Max soon finds himself in the middle of the underground resistance movement. A whirlwind romance soon develops and, when Max learns he has fallen in love with the wife of a brutal Nazi officer, he begins plotting her escape from Germany. At great risk to both, and with Margarethe now pregnant, a plan is formulated to transport her safely behind the Allied lines in France. At the appointed time, however, Margarethe fails to arrive at the departure point. Though he tries, Max is unable to locate her anywhere. Shortly thereafter Max’s unit is moved deeper into Germany and he never hears from Margarethe again.
After the war, Max sends hundreds of letters to refugee assistance agencies throughout Europe attempting to locate Margarethe and their child. Every road leads to a dead end and, after several years of trying, Max finally gives up.
Now, a lifetime later, Beth is told of a German woman in another care facility not so far away. It seems this mystery woman has been searching as well.
“Across The Winding River” is told within three distinct storylines, taking place in different, sometimes overlapping, time periods. While this sounds confusing, it’s actually very well done. Personally, I would have preferred to stay within the storyline of the 1940s. There were parts of the story set in the present time that I found somewhat annoying and perhaps a little unbelievable. Still, overall, I enjoyed this novel.
Booked In The City 