Forethoughts – War on the Margins by Libby Cone

For the next few days I’m temporarily setting aside my current ‘50 Novels’ challenge read – A Fraction of the Whole, so I can free myself up to fulfill a review commitment on a debut title by Philidelphia-based author Libby Cone.

War on the Margins is a novel set on the Channel Islands during World War II, with the main focus of the story centering on how the islanders endured the Nazi Occupation. Moreover it’s a story about resistance, as a number of the islanders unify in an attempt to expel the Fascist menace; for some though it’s also a story of endurance, as the hardships of imprisonment become a reality.

This novel has a couple of substantial ‘draws’ for me. Firstly the novel utilises extensive primary-source material, including the actual notes and diaries of Surrealist artist Claude Cahun (Lucille Schwob), who in real life was imprisoned on Jersey, along with fellow artist and long-term lover Marcel Moore (Suzanne Malherbe), after being captured by the secret police for propagandist activity. That alone substantiates the credibility of the novel for me, but additionally the author had originally gathered the research material for her Masters’ thesis in Jewish Studies, after which she was encouraged to further adapt her thesis into a novel. As an MA in History myself (albeit Medieval), I can attest, as I’m sure many of you also can, to the amount and quality of research work which Libby Cone would have had to have expended in order to appease her markers. It amounts to a huge amount of work and aside from anything else, I’m delighted to see that work going to another use, and reaching a wider audience, other than her ’stuffy’ professors alone (no offense meant Mr. Professors )).

The second ‘draw’ for me is my curiosity in finding out just how Cone has managed to weave fact into her fiction. That’s no new concept of course, but from what I can tell, Cone is mirroring many of the facts closely and turning them to fiction, so it’s going to be really interesting to see how this has worked out.

So as far as novel reading goes, this is my task for the next few days. I’m sad to be putting Fraction of the Whole aside for a short spell, because I’m enjoying it thoroughly. However I’m envisioning that War on The Margins is going to be a pretty special novel, so I’m not too downhearted. As always I’ll let you know how I get on.

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