Casualties (Portway Series) - Hardcover

When another of the vituperative quarrels between househusband Cal and his breadwinner wife, romance-novelist Sue, is interrupted by a telephone call from Holland, it's a welcome respite. Sue's friend from student days, Mariolain, asks if her husband, Niels, can stay with them while he is in London. Subsequently, Mariolain reciprocates, and the two couples and their children spend an Easter vacation together. Mariolain, whose home and family Sue finds a shaming contrast to her own messy menage, reveals to Sue her childhood experiences during the Occupation and the complex reasons for the difficulties she and Neils are experiencing in their apparently perfect marriage. Banks (The Warning Bell) makes the bonds between the two women and the immediate understanding reestablished between them tremendously moving. Shattering details of wartime hardships and childhood abuse are insinuated into matter-of-fact particulars about daily domestic routines. A visit to the house where Mariolain and her sister hid during the Nazi Occupation provides a catharsis for the reader as well. As the vacation ends, each couple has a new realization of the love they bear each other, and the children have grown up a little and learned something about tolerance. To call this a woman's book is no criticism; Banks's achievement here evidences that blend of intellect and emotion that is called feminine.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This story of friendship renewed and old histories brought to light is an interesting weave of narratives. Sue and Cal are invited to visit Sue's old chum in Holland. The two couples, each with a pair of children, find that the years have not so much changed them as borne the fruit of youthful events. Mariolain and Nils are casualties of the warMariolain in Holland where her mother and father became political enemies, Nils in Java where his own parents were taken from him and he survived among Indonesians. The two couples also share present troubles: marital discord, financial worries, the stress of parenthood. During Easter week, old mysteries and traumas are reexamined and present relationships take on new meaning for these very modern and engaging characters. A welcome new novel from Banks, well-remembered for The L-Shaped Room . Ann Donovan, Central Washington Univ. Lib., Ellensburg
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.