The Girl in the Blue Beret

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What to expect

Inspired by a true story, the bestselling author of In Country offers a gorgeous, haunting novel about an airline pilot coming to terms with his past, and searching for the people who saved him during World War II. After Marshall Stone's B-17 bomber was shot down in occupied Europe in 1944, people in the French Resistance helped him escape to safety. One of the brave French people who risked their lives for him was a lively girl in Paris—a girl identified by her blue beret. After the war Marshall returned to America, raised a family, and became a successful airline pilot. He tried to forget the war. Now, in 1980, he returns to France and finds himself drawn back in time—memories of the crash, the terror of being alone in a foreign country where German soldiers were hunting down fallen Allied aviators, the long months of hiding. Marshall finds the people who helped him escape from the Nazis and falls in love with the woman who was the girl in the blue beret. He also discovers astonishing revelations about the suffering of the people he had known during the war. Bobbie Ann Mason's novel, inspired by her father-in-law's wartime experiences, is a beautifully woven story of love, war, and second chances.

Critics Review

  • “A touching novel about love, loss, war, and memory…Mason’s latest, based on the real-life experiences of her father-in-law, is fascinating and intensely intimate.”

    Publishers Weekly

  • “Mason has given us a portrait of a man from a generation whose members were uncertain about the protocols of letting oneself feel. And she has lovingly captured the tone of bluff assertion still shared by veterans of that war. Marshall’s banality has the ring of truth; his awkwardness reveals much…The Girl in the Blue Beret is a work of remarkable empathy.”

    New York Times

  • “The profound story of an emotionally aloof retiree who must finally learn to stop flying above everything and embrace the people on the ground who saved his life…As much a historical search as a psychological one, and Mason has drawn the details of her downed airman’s ordeal from a range of published histories and interviews…A stirring tribute.”

    Washington Post

  • “The rich setting, detail, and intimate character nuances ring true…Highly recommended.

    Library Journal

  • “Bobbie Ann Mason knows her way around a good story…This is a war story told decades later, helped along by Mason’s extensive research in Europe, where she tracked down the real-life heroes herself. Ushering her readers back and forth across the decades, she perfectly weaves history with fiction.”

    USA Today

  • “Inspired by her father-in-law’s wartime experience, this novel at all times feels honest and real and offers a compelling story about the French Resistance…The true power of great fiction.”

    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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