- Paperback: 480 pages
- Publisher: Ballantine Books (Jan 3 1995)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0345482204
- ISBN-13: 978-0345482204
- Product Dimensions: 14 x 2.5 x 21.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 544 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,982,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
An American pilot shot down over central France during WWII falls in love with the Jewish ward of a pastor who runs an underground resistance network in this suspenseful and moving novel based on the true story of pastor Andr? Trocm? of Le Chambon sur Lignon. In England, 1944, New York-born fighter pilot Davey Gannon has not yet killed a man or slept with a woman. In France, German and Vichy officers are closing in on Pastor Favert, who with local accomplices has been hiding Jews to keep them from Nazi roundups. When Davey's plane crashes over the Massif Central during a mission, two villagers bring the wounded American to the pastor's house, unaware that Favert has been taken into custody. Rachel Weiss, a Jewish refugee the pastor is sheltering under the name Sylvie Bonaire, nurses Davey to health. They fall in love, and Davey vows to keep Rachel safe. Meanwhile, in Le Vernet concentration camp, the pastor preaches passive resistance and compassion, even while coping with wrenching spiritual dilemmas. With the Gestapo dragnet sweeping closer to Lignon, tension rises as the hidden Jewish children in the community seem destined to be discovered, and Davey's fate seems equally grim. Prompted to join the maquis, 19-year-old Pierre Glickstein, a talented forger of false identity papers, behaves heroically beyond his years. A prolific author of fiction and nonfiction, Daley (Prince of the City; A Priest and a Girl, etc.) depicts characters wrestling with moral decisions of every type: Favert deciding whether to lie about Jews converting to Christianity in order to save them, a policeman enforcing inhumane laws and a humble farmer risking his life for others. An expert on police procedure as well as an adept prose stylist, Daley precisely details communications, methods and logistics in the underground and in the bureaucracy bent on destroying it. The wartime romance at times seems as na?ve as the lovers themselves, but Daley's portrait of clear-sighted heroism in a historical moment marked by moral crises is compelling. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This seems to be a good year for love stories featuring downed World War II pilots hidden by the French underground and saved through the offices of strong-willed, albeit rather na?ve, young women. Unlike Sebastian Faulk's Charlotte Gray (LJ 2/1/99), however, Daley's novel focuses more directly on the underground itselfAin this case the activities of a real-life pastor named Andre Trocme, whose small Protestant village in the Massif Central region of Vichy France became a haven for Jews fleeing the Nazis. While Daley (author of thrillers like the classic Prince of the City) has changed the names of real people and places and created some fictional ones, he captures the spirit of the times, the courage that innocence often engenders, and the pain and self-doubt that come when innocence is shattered. The story is partly about love between a young, almost cherubic pilot and an 18-year-old Jewish hideaway, but ultimately it serves as an homage to the heroism of those who helped fellow humans simply because it was the right thing to do. Recommended for public and larger academic libraries.
-ADavid W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
-ADavid W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Strange Flat tale of refugees in WW2,
By
This review is from: The Innocents Within: A Novel (Hardcover)
An American fighter pilot gets shot down in occupied France. A Protestant pastor goads his village parishioners into sheltering Jewish refugees. One of the refugees, a pretty young girl, hides with him and becomes his adopted daughter. A young Jew learns to forge documents, and hides in a nearby farm.These are the elements of Robert Daley's The Innocents Within, a novel that should be more compelling than it is. When the pilot shelters with the pastor's family while the pastor himself has been temporarily arrested by the government. He (of course) falls in love with the girl, and meanwhile other wheels turn, each affecting the others. All of these elements are interesting, and the story itself is compelling, but the story is told in such flat, disinterested tones that nothing comes across as important, and the story is robbed of some of its suspense. It is, at times, affecting though. While the story sags in the middle somewhat, it does pick up somewhat towards the end.
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Story Of Those-Behind-The-Lines In France WW2.,
This review is from: The Innocents Within: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)
A fascinating story of people trapped in Nazi occupied France in World War II. The author knows his subject, the terrain, the characters, and all the small details of the time and the situations described. The sole defect of this book is that the author tells his tale so straight and somehow at-a-distance that the author does not seem to care who wins or loses and thus, neither does the reader. The author also does unnecessay embellishment; for instance we read pages of background on a priest - a minor character who appears briefly - for no apparent reason. Robert Daley is a craftsman who does a good job of writing - but he neither varnishes nor polishes his work. Good while you read it, but soon forgotten when you put it down.
1.0 out of 5 stars
The Innocents Within,
By dave martin (France, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Innocents Within: A Novel (Hardcover)
I was not prepared for the shock that I was going to receive when I started reading Robert Daly's book the Innocents Within. It was terrible. Actually, it was an abomination. The book should be banned. Even though I read only half of it, that was all I could take. What so bothered me about this book was the fact that Mr. Daly took a little bit of the truth and mixed in a lot of lies and confusion. This is dangerous. He did not represent the people or the events that took place in Le Chambon in a truthful or accurate manner. Even though he does state at the end of his book that it was a work of fiction, he could have written something better. Instead, he wrote a pornographic piece of trash. I cannot and would not recommend this book to anyone.
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