Lynn Austin. While We’re Far Apart. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2010. See here to buy the book.
While We’re Far Apart is set in World War II New England.
Eddie Schaffer is about to go to war, and the shy Penny Goodrich, who
has been infatuated with Eddie since the two of them were children,
offers to take care of his kids, Esther and Peter. Peter cannot talk
after his father leaves, and Esther resents Penny, thinking that Penny
is trying to take the place of Esther’s late mother, Rachel, who died in
an accident. Penny also has to contend with her elderly parents, who
are overly protective and continually berate her. Meanwhile, there is
the Schaffers’ landlord, a Jewish man named Jacob Mendel, who lost his
own wife in the same accident that took Rachel Schaffer. Jacob is angry
with God and has refused to attend synagogue, and so, when the local
synagogue burns down after he has an argument with the rabbi, the
authorities suspect him of arson. Jacob is also worried about his son,
Avraham, and Avraham’s family, for Avraham went to Hungary to study at
the yeshiva, and there is news that the Nazis are invading Hungary.
Mysteries emerge in the course of the book. Penny learns that she is
actually adopted, and she is curious about the identity of her real
mother and father. Esther and Peter know absolutely nothing about their
late mother’s side of the family, and they are curious about them. Then
there is the question of who burned down the synagogue. The mysteries
definitely propelled my reading of the book. I especially liked the road
trips that characters took in search of answers. (I think of the show, Brothers and Sisters:
“Road trip! Road trip!”) The resolution that particularly surprised me
concerned the burning of the synagogue: I was not surprised that one of
the characters did it, but I was surprised that a certain character
participated.
What most intrigued me about this book, however, was the author’s
portrayal of Judaism as a path to God. Or so it seemed to me. This is an
evangelical Christian book. Lynn Austin in other fictional works, and
even in this one, says that the death of Christ is what brings people
forgiveness. Yet, the sources of spiritual wisdom in this book were two
non-Christian Jewish characters: Jacob’s rabbi, who encourages Jacob to
return to faith, and Jacob himself, who finds his faith again as he
helps Esther and Peter to cope with the death of their mother, and the
challenges after that. I usually do not read Amazon reviews of books I
have read until I have written my own review, but I wonder if any
right-wing evangelicals have taken Lynn Austin to task for this.
A theological question that recurred to me as I read this book, and
which comes up often when I read Lynn Austin’s books, concerns God’s
activity in the world. Does God protect us and our loved ones when we
pray for protection? If so, how can we account for the bad things that
happen to people? Lynn Austin seems to vacillate on this: she appears to
believe that God protects, but she also does not think that God is a
genie who does whatever we ask. She thinks that God can bring good out
of bad, and she also maintains that God respects people’s free-will, and
thus they, not God, are to blame for evil. I was thinking of a point
that I read in atheist Robert Price’s The Reason Driven Life:
that many Christian pastors advertise that God protects people, but
later they have to deal with fallout after something tragic happens to
someone, and that person comes to the pastors for answers. As I read
Lynn Austin’s book and saw that some people survived, and some did not, I
wondered if the people who survived really did so as a result of divine
protection, or if it was simply a matter of chance: that people should
be happy that they are alive, for things could have easily turned out
differently. I still pray for God to protect people, however, for maybe
God does; plus, doing so makes me feel better. In addition, I believe
that God protects me, even if I die, for I believe in an afterlife: that
I am safe in God’s hands, whatever happens.
In reading this book, I learned about Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish
businessman who saved Jews from annihilation by giving them fake papers
portraying them as Swedish nationals. As it did with Oscar Schindler,
the Israeli government declared Wallenberg to be one of the “Righteous
Among the Nations.” And so he was. So many people turned the other way
or minded their own affairs when the Nazis were persecuting and killing
the Jews. For someone to stick his neck out for his fellow human being
was not only righteous, but heroic.
My favorite line in the book is on page 405. One of the characters is
Roy, a likable, happy-go-lucky serviceman who strikes up a friendship
with Penny on the bus. Penny helps Roy write love letters to Sally.
Later in the book, Roy says: “I finally realized why I always had so
much trouble telling Sally how I felt. It was because what I felt wasn’t
love. A man in love should have no trouble at all. Even if he’s
tongue-tied, he should overflow with ways to express how he feels. I
never felt any of that. I was dazzled by her beauty and by the fact that
she would even look twice at a guy like me.”
What I appreciated the most about this book was the development of
relationships. Esther did not care for Penny and treated her shabbily
for a long time, but they came to care for each other. Jacob Mendel was
alone in his bitterness, until Esther, Peter, and Penny came into his
life, and he did what he could to help them out.
This book won a Christy Award. No surprise there!