The Berlin Letters

by Katherine Reay

Dakota County Library paperback 347 pages plus author's note, etc.

Published: 2024

Genre: Christian historical fiction

I love this author! Sadly, I didn't get to attend the book club discussion. My grandchildren were more lively than I had anticipated and they were here for an overnight visit . . . 

Luisa Voekler is the main character in this book. Born in Germany but brought to America by her grandparents when she was little, she is working for the CIA. She is a talented code breaker with an "accountant" cover story. She was told that her parents died in a car crash when she was little.

In reality, her mother handed her over the barbed wire to the grandparents who raised her on that fateful August day when the wall was built between East and West Berlin. Weaving between the "modern" 1989 story and the 1960s, Reay does a lovely job of filling out the characters and the storyline. What an interesting book! 

Page 23 - "In a society terribly afraid of the Soviets and the nuclear terror they could rain down on us, people often mistake German for Russian. Americans, on the whole, aren't multilingual and can be a little culturally myopic."

This hurts, but is so true. Not just in the 1960s or 1980s . . . a lot of Americans have the "you should only speak English" mentality. It's a bit embarrassing in a global society.

Page 48 - "Three days later my room was swarmed by ants. Thousands of them. They were everywhere. Oma freaked out and ran screaming from the room. She was reeling, like in the chaos of a massive cyclone. I stood stunned, illuminated by a focused lightning strike. The cake!"

I related to this scene so much! I would be like Oma, freaked out and screaming. I would also be like little Luisa, reluctant to explain that I had hidden a forbidden slice of cake in the floorboards of my bedroom, sneaking a treat for later and forgetting it. This page also made me laugh! Human nature is full of foibles.

 

Page 51 - "From 1949 to today,  (Jeanne's note - 8.13.1961) over three and a half million East Germans came to the Soviet Sector, walked across a line, and disappeared."

How awful that people no longer wanted to live in their homeland and leadership's response was to build a wall to prevent them from going! Three and a half MILLION people in twelve years? That's crazy.

Page 65 - "The mental gyrations I'm conjuring to justify what I'm about to do are extraordinary. Integrity, I shake my head, teeters at the cutting edge of a very slippery slope."

I love her language here! So often if I find myself rationalizing a decision (making excuses to do what I want to do), I realize I need to take a step back and think about WHY I'm trying to make things happen a certain way. Integrity is too important to compromise with situational decision-making.

Page 119 - "It's a family trait . . . We all have secrets."

Typically, I get frustrated with book club characters who could solve problems so much more easily if they were just honest with their loved ones! But in this story, it was easier to see why people kept their secrets. It was nice to have the truth come out, though!

Page 187 - "He lifts his hand as if I'm about to interrupt him, and I realize how often people do that. I barely know this man. Do I give off some sign that I don't let people finish their sentences?"

This was another place where I identified with Luisa, but it makes me sad. I'm not a good listener and I'm too often ready to interrupt and jump in with my own thoughts and ideas. It's something I'm trying to work on!

Page 251 - "A snitch. I remember Oma telling me stories growing up, how the Stasi, despite employing a seemingly countless number of agents, still recruited on average one snitch, one Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, per eight people. That would mean statistically, sitting in a room with seven friends, you'd be confiding your secrets to a Stasi informant."

This reminded me of Ruta Sepetys' book I Must Betray You (set in Romania). I can't imagine living with the paranoia of wondering who is informing and who can be trusted. How awful!

Page 286 - "Because Andrew was right - the tension in the air is palpable on both sides of the Wall. Eastern Europe feels like it's breaking apart. I suppose I have no way to know if it's the usual tension, but I can't imagine it is. How can one live day by day in this charged, electric, fraught atmosphere?"

This reminded me that people all over the planet are living in dangerous, tense, fraught situations. I think of people right now in Ukraine, Haiti, Gaza, . . . and it's both easy to be thankful to live without this fear and tension and difficult to imagine what I can do to help those who are struggling.

I really liked (and was surprised by) Haris Voelker's character arc. I liked the punk bands aspect toward the end (though I don't like that style of music!). This was well-researched and well-written. Another hit from Reay.