Posted by on Oct 5, 2012 in | 0 comments

Idyllic summers on Cape Cod, dedicated to fishing, quiet hammock naps with heavenly breezes, joyful gardening, and family picnics on the beach, are suddenly shattered with the sobering realization of war.  New pastimes involve the deafening sounds of bombers flying low, patrolling along the beaches, rumors of U-boats off the shore, and the routine blackouts that every family had to endure. This all happened to Robert Nathan, and he wrote about these events in this fictionalized novel about a New York based author, who spends what he hopes will be a happy summer with his family at Truro, but as the darkest hours of the Second World War approach, their very existence is threatened.

 

CRITICS REVIEW

“It is this duality of mood in ‘Journal of Josephine’ which makes it, I think, so uncommonly appealing in its interest and its freshness. Sometimes Mr. Nathan’s journal is merely a charming, informal record of a summer on Cape Cod. Yet, at other times it is, in the literal sense, a war diary, offering modest but valid testimony from the front here at home. It crystallizes an experience which, I think, was well worth recording, which certainly has a meaning for all of us.”

Edith Walton
New York Times