Small Acts of Resistance

Anita Frank

‘Sometimes in life, the greater courage is in realising the right thing is not always the best thing to do and altering your course accordingly.’

AS war rages across Northern France in May of 1915, brave soldiers put their lives on the line for king and country… but not all battles are fought on the frontline and sometimes courage, determination and the smallest acts of resistance can be found far from the front, and in the most unexpected places.

Anita Frank (pictured below) – who impressed both readers and critics with her stunning, award-winning debut, The Lost Ones, and followed up that success story with two more piercingly insightful novels, The Return and The Good Liars – sweeps us away to a small farmhouse in a rural French village where one all-female family must make impossible choices in their own perilous battle to save one young British airman’s life. Written in Frank’s impeccable, descriptive prose, delivering piercing insights into a tumultuous period of history, and tingling with the atmospherics that have become a hallmark of her novels, Small Acts of Resistance is a truly heart-rending and ultimately life-affirming story which explores love, loyalty, family relationships, fighting for survival, and heroism in all its different guises.

When his aircraft crash lands in Northern France in May of 1915, British airman Lieutenant Henry Farrier finds himself stranded behind enemy lines. He is not sure how long he can survive hiding out in woodland and has little choice but to try to set off on a dangerous course to the Dutch border.

What he hadn’t reckoned on was being discovered by schoolgirl Élodie who takes him back to the small farmhouse she shares with her older sister Marie and their grandmother Claudette Vaux who offers to hide him in a secret wall cavity that had once been used by her late husband when was smuggling tobacco over the border.

‘You won’t be the first person to be hidden within our walls,’ she tells Henry. ‘Not one of them has been found yet.’ From now on, Henry’s survival will depend on the courage and compassion of Claudette and her granddaughters, but Marie is far from happy with the plan, fearing that they will be shot by the Germans if Henry is discovered.

With their village already suffering under Occupation, and much of their food purloined by the enemy, Marie knows sheltering Henry will be immensely difficult and place the family in grave danger. And that peril only increases when two German officers – one a ruthless military man and the other a regimental doctor – are unexpectedly billeted with them.

Forced to live cheek by jowl with their occupiers, it takes all the besieged family’s cunning to keep Henry’s presence a secret but as the shadow of war spreads, loves awakens, offering a glimmer of hope amidst the darkness. But then love is put to the test and everyone’s loyalty is called into question… the fall-out from the choices they must now make will be felt long after the war is over.

Frank works her special storytelling magic on this gripping and emotionally charged tale, set behind the military lines and yet teeming with the same tensions and daily dangers faced by soldiers waging a brutal war in the trenches and airmen patrolling the shadowy skies of Northern France. At the centre of the story is the resolute matriarch Claudette who refused to abandon her home in the terrifying days when the Germans first advanced and has since then never once listened to her more cautious elder granddaughter’s pleas to leave, stoutly declaring that ‘no barbarian will drive me off my property.’

A tale of excruciating choices, loyalties tested to extremes, and the powerful bonds of family and friendship, Small Acts of Remembrance explores the experiences, emotional turmoil and claustrophobic intensity of a small group of people caught up in a the ever-increasing vortex of a deadly secret. But love – both romantic and familial – blossoms amidst the hiding and conniving, and we observe how the quiet courage, determination and resilience of Claudette and her granddaughters – who risk everything to help Henry – is no less heroic than the actions of soldiers on the nearby battlefield.

With each character exquisitely drawn, and Frank’s piercing psychological insight guiding us deep into the daily perils of hiding a wanted man in plain sight, this is a tale of humanity at its best and worst, and another unforgettable journey alongside an author at the top of her game.
(HQ, hardback, £20)