The woman who had to fight her own war in World War II

This week we have the latest book from one of America's most famous authors, a collection of short stories and a novella. It's a meditation on grief and loss, healing and faith. There's a new edition of a novel about another writer on his honeymoon in Germany. And there's the story of a young Irish woman who had to fight her own war in World War II, facing danger and betrayal at every turn.

Kitty's War, Eimear Lawlor, Head of Zeus, €13.99

If you didn't know that the Curragh Camp was where German prisoners of war were interned during World War II, you know now. I didn't know either, and this is just one example of how reading fiction can inadvertently broaden one's education. But this story isn't so much about history as it is about Kitty Flynn returning to her native Ireland to escape the bombing zone that London has become since the outbreak of World War II. Yet escaping one war zone only leads her to another, one that is admittedly more rural and much quieter without the bomb shelters and air raid sirens, but no less of a threat to Kitty.

Her estranged brother has returned from the Spanish Civil War and their strained sibling relationship is further complicated by the presence of a German airman seen as a threat to Irish national security. And as in Sophie's Choice, Kitty is forced to make an utterly impossible decision. It is a human and compassionate portrayal of life here during the State of Emergency and a novel about a woman's courage and grace under fire.

Table for two, Amor Towles, Hutchinson Heinemann, 16,99 €

If an aspiring author were to try to persuade a publisher—any publisher—to print his first novel, half a dozen short stories and a novella in one volume, his manuscript would immediately go into the unsolicited manuscript pile. But if you're Amor Towles, you can do whatever you want. He has proven in his less than prolific track record that he can bridge the gap between literary fiction and mega-bestseller with a rare ease. And these stories span both coasts of America, east to west, New York to LA (sounds like a song, doesn't it?) with the same apparent ease. While it is by no means “ease,” of course, it is genius, and genius is hard to mine, hard to achieve, hard to work at.

In the novella we meet Eve Ross again (we first meet him in his wonderful Rules of Civility) struggling through her new life as a budding Hollywood movie star in Los Angeles, where another starlet, Olivia de Havilland, is distressed by the actions of a blackmailer who has some salacious pictures of her. Evie's relationship with an ex-cop makes for a superb, often ironic, tale of Hollywood's golden age. In his short stories we come across Pushkin, a Russian who shows mercy to his fellow citizens as they queue for food, an antiquarian, a cello performance of Bach so well described that it catches the eye of even the best music critics, a mixed bag of wonders. It's hard to say how many 21st-century writers will be remembered, but I'd wager that Towles is one of them.

Summer in Baden-Baden, Leonid Zypkin, Faber, 14,99 €

This novel was first published in English in 1987, and this Faber reprint includes Susan Sonntag's introduction to the 2001 edition. Sonntag's introduction alone is worth the purchase. The fictional story follows the great Fyodor Dostoyevsky on his 1867 honeymoon to Baden-Baden with his new (and first) wife, Anna. The writer is in love, but his private demons persist: he gambles in the hope of paying off his mounting debts, his epileptic fits, and his obsessive jealousy. Fast forward to 1970s Russia: The story's narrator is on a journey – a pilgrimage, really – to retrace Anna Dostoyevsky's journey across Russia from Moscow to Leningrad. The lives of the narrator and the great writer intersect in ways the narrator could not have predicted.

Smuggled out of the USSR in 1981 and subsequently translated into over 20 languages, this novel is not an easy read (neither was Dostoyevsky!), but it is a fitting tribute to the great master and a complex work of imagination by Tsypkin, who eventually created his own great modern classic.

Sleeping Letters, Marie-Elsa R Bragg, Vintage, 14,50 €

Marie-Elsa Roche Bragg is the daughter of Melvyn Bragg (South Bank Show) and is a Church of England priest in the Diocese of London, Ignatian clergyman, psychotherapist and chaplain-in-charge of Westminster Abbey. Those who know the life of her famous father will know that his first wife, Marie-Elsa's mother, committed suicide when their only child was just six years old. The trauma drove Bragg mad and haunted his daughter for the rest of her life. Part memoir, part long poem, this book is a pure exploration of grief at its deepest roots. It is a thoughtful, beautifully crafted work and although it is full of sorrow, it is also full of hope, even joy. It would particularly appeal to the recently bereaved, although I think anyone seeking solace would also pull it off the bookshelf on a regular basis.

Bragg has devoted her life to her religious calling, but she also has a calling as a writer, and the divine shines through the power and elegance of her language. Someone recently remarked that it reminded him of Max Porter's brilliant Grief is the Thing with Feathers. But to me her writing is closer to that of our own John Moriarty, who uses words that are clumsy tools at the best of times to uncover the sacredness in life's pain.

Footnotes

Culture Night is on Friday 20th September this year and there will be something going on at almost every junction in the country (hopefully not with pretty maidens dancing though). Keep an eye on your local paper in print and online and if nothing appeals to you locally, it's always worth a trip to the big city where entry to most things is free and all the venues, galleries, museums and arts and culture centres are open late for both business and leisure. For more information visit culturenight.ie.