The Last Day of the War [Paperback]

Judith Claire Mitchell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 14, 2005

Yael Weiss, eighteen years old and looking for adventure, finds it in the library one day when she discovers a packet of guns meant for Erinyes, an Armenian organization set on avenging their people’s massacre by the Turks in 1915. While the weapons make her nervous, Dub Hagopian, the young Armenian-American soldier sent to retrieve them, excites her in a completely different way.Smitten, Yael impulsively follows Dub to France by volunteering with the YMCA, reinventing herself along the way as twenty-five-year-old Methodist Yale White. When she and Dub cross paths again, Yael gets caught up in a crowd bursting with both the passionate ideals and the devil-may-care energy of youth–with consequences neither of them could ever foresee.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

All the heroes are liars in this smart, entertaining novel set at the close of World War I. Yael Weiss, an 18-year-old Jewish girl from St. Louis, falls in love at first sight with Dub Hagopian, an Armenian-American soldier. After a brief encounter at the public library, Yael changes her name, pretends she is Christian, assumes a phony age and joins up with the YMCA to follow him abroad without knowing who or where he is. In Europe, Yael meets fellow Y girl and troublemaker Brennan ("Now, shall we? It's their call to arms, this demure question"), who helps her spot Dub by chance at a Paris train station. Meanwhile, Dub has been serving as a translator for the hypocritical powers involved in the peace process, but he also secretly works for Erinyes, an underground organization fighting to avenge the Armenian genocide of 1915. With pluck and determination, Yael helps him track exiled Turkish war criminals, taking on the Armenian cause as her own. Like her heroine, Mitchell's debut is willfully charming, alternately impudent and intense ("Love. From the French oeuf. Oeuf meaning egg. As in egg handgrenaten"). Resisting the temptation to write an "issue" book, Mitchell manages to capture a horrendous chapter in world history through exhaustive research while allowing a full spectrum of humor and pathos to flesh out the picture.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Mitchell's novel is based on her friend's great-aunt's letters describing her work as a YMCA volunteer in France in 1919, where and when she met an Armenian who had lost his family. It is the story of a Jewish girl from St. Louis and an Armenian American soldier at the end of World War I. The protagonist is 18-year-old Yael Weiss, who passes herself off as Yale White, a 25-year-old Methodist, so she can work at the YMCA soldiers' canteen in Paris. The soldier she follows to France is the son of immigrants living in Providence, Rhode Island. He is a member of Erinyes, an underground organization devoted to avenging the massacres of Armenians in 1915. But it is the succinct passages scattered throughout the book that make it exceptional. For instance, "Some Jews took the names of their tribes. Cohen, Levi. Wealthy Jews purchased beautiful names. Lillenfeld (field of lilies). Poor Jews had to accept humiliating names. Gross (fat)." This eloquent first novel encompasses the full spectrum of joy and torment that is the human condition. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (June 14, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038572201X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385722018
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #496,042 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Armenians don't kneel.", June 17, 2004

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Last Day of the War: A Novel (Hardcover)

Between 1894 and 1915, almost a million Armenians were killed in a series of massacres by the Turks. Here author Mitchell seizes on the fact that many Armenian-Americans who fought in Europe during World War I were committed at the same time to finding and punishing the leaders of these massacres, many of whom had escaped to Europe. One of these soldiers is Doubleday (Dub) Hagopian, an American who goes to war in Europe and stays on to work as a translator during the Paris Peace Conference. He is part of a secret society of Armenians dedicated to capturing three leaders of the massacres who have escaped to Germany, along with a former police chief, now in Paris, who locked the doors of an Armenian church, then set it afire, killing scores of worshipping families.

Yale White, formerly Yael Weiss, an adventurous eighteen-year-old from St. Louis, lies about her age and her religion to follow Dub to Europe, where she works as a "canteen lady" for the YMCA. She and her unconventional best friend, Mary "Brennan" White, presage the "flapper" attitudes that will develop after the war, while Dub and Raffi Soghokian, an acquaintance from Providence, serve the serious cause of Erinyes, a secret organization seeking to avenge the massacres. As the story develops, the author presents flashbacks which reveal the terrible history of the Armenians, not in generic terms, but as it affects individuals in the novel, a history that has remained relatively unknown to westerners. As Yale's love for Dub grows, she becomes a passionate and active supporter of his cause.

The novel depends to a great extent on coincidences to resolve the action, with the right people being in the right places at the right times, and the story occasionally wanders. There is little foreshadowing to provide unity, and while some of the characters begin to question some of their initial decisions, they do not change very much. The author steps out of "character" to teach the reader history-the basics of how World War I got started, along with details of the peace treaties at the end of World War I, which promised sovereignty to the Armenian people. Overall, however, the novel is fast-paced and exciting and pays long-overdue attention to the Armenian people, their history, and culture, a good debut novel from an author whose story reaches beyond pure plot. Mary Whipple

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heavy topics, light touch, June 18, 2005

By 

Cary Honig "caryhon" (Providence, RI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Day of the War: A Novel (Hardcover)

While I wasn't sure I would like this book after the first ten pages, I quickly reached the critical point at which I couldn't stop reading. This novel manages to educate the reader about the Armenian Holocaust on a personal rather than statistical level while also providing an engrossing story about its protagonists and asking many ethical questions about justice, revenge, commitment and truth in an open-minded way. I found the book's tone very engaging, especially after the first third, and it encouraged me to read The Burning Tigris to learn more about the Armenian Holocaust and Paris 1919 to learn more about the Peace Conference against which the second half of this novel is set. I highly recommend this book and look forward to more by this author.

5.0 out of 5 stars A hidden gem, September 1, 2008

By 

ash (Phoenix) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Last Day of the War (Paperback)

I had been looking for novels about World War I, and someone recommended this . I am so very glad they did; its probably one of my favorite reads this year

Yael Weiss is an 18 year old living in St Louis. She happens to meet an American soldier who also is involved in a group taking revenge on Turks responsible for the Armenian genocide of 1915. When he goes to France, she decided to follow him. She fakes her age and volunteers with the YWCA who is recruiting young women to Paris, helping as soldiers start coming home at the end of the war. You can probably guess what happens, but there is so much more to this book than a love story. There is the history of the Armenias people's survival, the response to the massacres by the powers that were in the world. The author brings up many heavy moral issues, and while her characters don't always work them through, how they respond to them moves the story. Its not all somber tho; The author manages to include some hilarious and ironic situations that don't cheapen the story at all, but make it all the more human. There are coincidences here that might be a little implausible, but I was so interested in the story and characters that they didn't bother me in the slightest. Oh, and her characters - I suspect I am going to be thinking of them quite a bit over the next day or so.

In the author notes, she gives an excellent summary of the sources she used, how she developed characters and which events were true, as well as a helpful time line. As always,I appreciate this in a HF book!

I should note that I don't give many 5 stars; most books are not perfect. But this one gave me just what I was looking for, and I really couldn't find a thing to fault it. Its a quick read, but one that is sobering, and yet life affirming. Highly recommended. I am looking forward to reading more books by this author.