In April 1940, as the Nazis march into Denmark, a rich girl named Sydney Brant marries a gifted Danish pianist, Laurus Moss. Almost at once, their views of the world and their marriage begin to diverge. Laurus's beloved family is in Copenhagen, hostage to Hitler's war. When Laurus chooses to leave Sydney in the fall of 1941 to help build a Danish Resistance from London, Sydney is dismayed. By the time they are reunited four years later, Laurus's family and the reader have been through one of the most stirring stories of the war - Denmark's courageous grassroots rescue of virtually all seven thousand of the country's Jews. Meanwhile Sydney, in America, has led a group knitting for the war effort, and had a baby. In the decades to come, many people, especially their grown children, will wonder if these two very different people understand each other at all.
1 of 1 copy available
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
May 1, 2006 -
Formats
-
OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780792744337
- File size: 428607 KB
- Duration: 14:52:55
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
Beth Gutcheon has an elegiac style that envelopes readers entirely in the fictional worlds she creates. In LEEWAY COTTAGE, she takes us back to WWII--to the isolated world of America's moneyed Eastern establishment and to the front lines of the Danish Resistance. These two worlds collide in one complex, unhappy marriage between an American and a Dane. Susan Ericksen offers a lucid reading in a well-modulated voice that is easy to listen to. Admittedly, she has taken the stately quality of Gutcheon's writing a bit too much to heart; one wishes she had picked up the pace a bit. Nonetheless, she has a light, sure touch with the accents, giving just enough to make the dialogue scenes real. And the clarity of her narration is gratifying. This is a satisfying listen. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine -
February 28, 2005
In this sprawling family epic, Gutcheon (More Than You Know
) chronicles how an unlikely marriage endures over the course of the 20th century. The novel is anchored in the idyllic, fictional summer colony of Dundee, Maine, which will always feel like home to Annabelle Sydney Brant, but turns on the story of the Danish resistance against the Nazis in WWII, a revolt Annabelle's Danish-born, half-Jewish husband, Laurus Moss, leaves the U.S. to join. Annabelle matures from the young, cosseted Annabee (coming-out parties in Cleveland, sailing in Maine) to the bohemian Sydney (voice lessons and a flat in New York City), clashing with her chilly, socialite mother, Candace, along the way. In New York, she meets Laurus, a pianist, and as they court, Hitler marches on Europe. When the Nazis invade Denmark in 1940, Laurus cannot rest idly with his homeland and family endangered, so joins the London-based Danish Resistance. During their separation, Sydney gives birth to the first of three children and Laurus's family escapes from Denmark to Sweden. The war and time apart change but don't estrange Laurus and Sydney, whose lasting union despite glaring differences puzzles observers: "Sydney and Laurus Moss were like a tiger and a zebra married to each other. What were
those two doing together?" Charting a marriage against the backdrop of a tumultuous century, Gutcheon writes evocatively of love and war. Agent, Wendy Weil. -
Elizabeth Marvel captures the subtleties and humor of Gutcheon's fine novel of family and friendships. The guest book of Leeway Cottage, the Maine summer house that is the touchstone of several generations of the Brant family, follows the years from the '30s through WWII to the present. The entries of comments by guests center the swirl of events and characters--a useful device especially in this abridgment. Marvel is perceptive of the carefully honed balance of emotions of the characters and brings them alive with voice and cadence. Marvel's deft way with dialogue enhances the richness of the portraits. The men's voices are distinctive and serviceable, if not perfect, but the many Danish and German names are spoken fluidly. R.F.W. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
-