Customer Reviews

French Letters Book One: Virginia's War

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With Virginia's War, Jack London paints a vivid and poignant portrait of life on the home front during World War II in the small town of Tierra, Texas. Starting with a compelling prologue, Mr. London brings the town of Tierra and its residents to life, drawing us into the plight of Virginia Sullivan and the repercussions of her unexpected pregnancy. The novel is smartly written and engaging, with an uncommon human touch and resonance that stands out and makes the book a first-class read.

Set in the spring of 1944, "Virginia's War" chronicles six months in the life of a small Texas town as its inhabitants struggle with everyday existence in the backdrop of WWII.

Although war is raging a world away for Captain Will Hastings, life back home in Tierra, Texas goes on pretty much as usual with the exception of food rationings and other hardships brought on by the war. Unbeknownst to Captain Hastings, the entire community is under the impression that he and hometown beauty, Miss Virginia Sullivan, have recently tied the knot--a deception perpetrated by the father of the shockingly unwed and pregnant, Virginia.

"Virginia's War is beautifully written and centers around the scandals, cover-ups, and politics of life in a small town where everybody knows everybody--or so they think.

The front cover of "Virginia's War" has a lovely, nostalgic feel to it complete with an image of a winsome Virginia clasping handwritten letters from her soldier. I enjoyed having the visual of the heroine in my mind as I read her story.

The author offers a unique perspective of Virginia's "adult" dilemma as viewed through the eyes of an endearing adolescent boy named Sandy Clayton. Mr. London captures the boy's infectious personality and unique viewpoint perfectly, giving the reader multiple chances to chuckle and reminisce about the innocence of childhood.

Author, Jack London, sets a marvelous stage with which to draw the reader into his story, beginning with a taste of scandal in the prologue that divulges just enough conflict to whet the reader's appetite for more. He closes with an ending that leaves the reader satisfied but curious as to how the saga will unfold in the subsequent two volumes.

"Virginia's War" is extremely well written, authentic to the time period, and very entertaining.

If anyone has ever lived in--or at least visited--a small town in the Texas panhandle, Virginia's War will transport them back to that land in both space and time. Mr. London has certainly done a fine job of painting a verbal picture of Tierra Texas, and his characters are so real, that I can't help but wonder if they were based on people he has actually known.

For those of us who weren't yet alive during this time period, Virginia's War is a great and entertaining way to learn about the other side of history--that history not made in the trenches or the Normandy Invasion, but those events happening here on the home front.

There is a twist at the end of the book, and a mystery. I can only hope that we will soon have a chance to read the next installment of French Letters, or I will personally call the author himself and find out what happened!

Small town America where patriotism, faithfulness & discretion for those left behind are tested while gossip, like measles or scarlet fever, runs through the community as new lives are spun over old.

VIRGINIA'S WAR starts out with a modern day funeral of one of those boys who went to war so long ago. There's an elderly couple in the congregation, contemporaries of the deceased & his widow, who witness one of the grieving grown sons utter to his brother dreadful curses & calumny. As the Grummans drive home to their 3 room house they built after The War, they speak in unfinished thoughts about the past so few are left to remember.

Welcome to the dark side of Norman Rockwell's Home Front where boys replay Us vs Them battles, one of whom will draw the threads together as this tale progresses. Now, he's injured & has to go to the distracted doctor who patches him up before rushing back to attend his other patient. While waiting for his broken nose to quit bleeding, the lad spies the prettiest girl in town scurry out of the doc's office & overhears snippets of conversations that someone his age wouldn't understand. Readers, however, will.

Behind every American GI was a community of assorted adults eager to fuel gossip & betrayal. With few sentences completed & fewer thoughts finished, it's no wonder the stories of Tierra, Texas take on the flickering drama of a faded soap opera played against the vaster backdrop of WWII's ETO.

VIRGINIA'S WAR is an engaging, if often mean-spirited, reconstruction of a long ago community & its mores.

I look forward to Book 2 of this trilogy: ENGAGED IN WAR: Normandy 1944. This author has set out to honor his father, a member of the often-silent Greatest Generation. He has a sure touch when it comes to revitalizing the everyday stories of a long gone society, & their military experience.

Perhaps it was because so many returned only to find the Home Front on fire with change & gossip, that it fell short of the idealized that had kept our hapless heroes going so they could get back, pack away their uniforms & dreadful memories & simply get on with their hard-won lives.

I grew up in England where, as a teenager, I came upon the phrase "French Letters." It meant something particular, & when you type that phrase into a search engine, you'll see what I mean & wonder, as I did, if the author intended the double entendre.

Mr. London has painted a wonderful Texas small-town plot with implications that spread to the enemy lines of Word War II. After a few chapters, I began to wonder if he knew some of the same folks from my home town. "Virginia's War" develops strong, unforgettable characters and weaves them into a wonderful plot, grabbing you with unexpected twists and turns. I look forward to reading how Mr. London straightens them out in the next of his series.

I loved "French Letters". Each carefully crafted character, each storefront sidewalk, each dusty road transported me back to my own small hometown. The author walked me through familiar rooms, ran me across familiar fields, let me listen to familiar voices. Through this compelling story, the author revealed that time and circumstance can make heroes and villains of ordinary people, people we may "think" we know. I'm eager to read the next book in the trilogy.

A great read! They say that in good literature all action should be character driven and this is absolutely the case in French Letters. For me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of this book is the astute way in which we are drawn to identify with the main character. It would have been easy for Virginia to have become another hapless victim, but we watch her, at times sympathetic, at times aghast, as she aids and abets fate in the creation of her own plight. But this imperfection and vulnerability is precisely why her character is so convincing, and more than once, I was touched by scenes where she behaved in a less that perfect way in a less than perfect world. Just trying to do her best, and not always managing. And the memories this evoked of having lived something similar were strong.

The small town feel was also very convincing. I grew up in a small village (not in the US) and was struck by the portrayal of the complex, often conflicting undercurrents that characterise village life. The sensation of things feeling familiar exerts a very strong pull on the reader and I for one was as much enchanted by this as the action itself.

Having said that, WW2 is constantly bubbling away in the background and constitutes another character in the book, a desperate presence that pushes people to test their limits and reveal (and discover!) what they are ultimately made of. In this work, Jack London reflects the universal- the concerns, challenges and casualties of a small town in wartime - by honing in on the particular, in this case the people of Tierra, Teaxs - when the rules for `good living' suddenly seem changed and outdated and nothing is as sure as it used to be. And where everyone is busy fighting their own personal war, worlds away from the battlefield. But the other great universal is also true - in the end the truth shall out, and that includes Virginia's truth...


Sequel please, and soon!

An engaging and edgy look at life in a small town during World War II is what you'll find in "French Letters - Virgnia's War: Tierra, Texas 1944", the first book of a planned trilogy by Jack Woodville London.

In the little town of Tierra, Texas, the young boys play war while the men are already off fighting Hitler and the Nazis. But Virginia has a war all her own. Dealing with a spiteful brother, a manipulative father, and a dark secret that threatens to be revealed, she lives her life under the watchful eyes of the entire town. Sometimes the casualities of war are not wounded on the battlefield.

With "French Letters", London captures the delicate and sometimes sinister intricacies of little town USA. The multiple points of view tell a story that is both riveting and tragic.

At times readers will sympathize with Virginia's plight, but at others they will find themselves disturbed by her actions; just as there are moments when they will feel sorry for Poppy (Virginia's father) even after despising him for a good portion of the book. This is truly a piece of work filled with a group of complex antagonists: Virginia's brother Bart, Poppy and Doc, who is fully aware of Virginia's little secret and helps Poppy to cover it up.

And flowing through Virginia's story is the one of war abroad. As Will Hastings, his brother Peter, Hoyt Carter, and Johnny Bradley have left Tierra to fight against an evil even deeper than the one that runs through Tierra.

Literary fiction and historical fiction fans will find "French Letters" by Jack Woodville London a poignant and engaging read.

This novel, set against the backdrop of WWII, takes one into the life of a small Texas town where a young woman's choice changes the lives of those around her. Told from different viewpoints, the reader becomes instantly engaged with Virginia and the various "wars" she is waging on the home-front: with her vengeful brother, with her father's manipulations of the town and its inhabitants, and with the truth, of her life, her marriage and her pregnancy.

Jack Woodville London's touching novel of small-town secrets, love, and the casualties of war is not what I had expected. On first glance, it appeared to be nice story, suitable entertainment for whiling away a rainy afternoon with a pot of tea. In reality, this piece is falls into what I would term literature rather than a piece of mind-candy. This is the sort of novel one does not come across very often. Mr. London's prose is beautiful without being pretentious. His characters come alive with a minimum of description and he handles their strengths and weaknesses in a manner that one can relate to. Further, Mr. London delivers a poignant, compelling story without gratuitous sex or violence.

This book is the first in a trilogy and I am eagerly awaiting the next installment.

[...]

This engaging trilogy, French Letters, opens with a scene from a small Texas town, affected like most of the country, by World War II. Populated by characters both engaging and exasperating, the action is never dull. From a bump on the nose to a baby bump, the activities in one small town easily fill the first book in the series, "Virginia's War: Tierra, Texas, 1944." And by the end of the first book, readers will be wishing that they already had the next volume in hand.

The main circumstances of this story focus on Sandy Clayton, a small boy whose energy and interests always seem to keep him front and center of Tierra's happenings, and Virginia Sullivan, a young woman whose recent pregnancy is less surprising to her than the activities of her own family. Whether it's her newspaper-owning father announcing an elopement that never occurred or her brother Bart posting her personal letters on the bulletin board of the Post Office, something unexpected is always at hand.

Then there's the back story of Virginia's friends, the boys who went off to fight the war: Will Hastings (of the reported marriage), his brother Peter, Hoyt Carter, and Johnny Bradley, not all of whom will make it through. Whether set on the home front of Tierra, Texas, or on the fields of France or the islands of the Pacific, there is grief to be suffered, but also strength and companionship among these friends from Texas.

Author Jack London has given his readers a great opening salvo in "Virginia's War," something to sink their teeth into--a town worth exploring, interesting and complicated relationships, power struggles, and overshadowing it all, a World War. If London can keep up the pace of "Virginia's War" into volume two, he will surely have a winning trilogy on his hands.

Christine Zibas, Book Pleasures