THE EVENING CHORUS

Helen Humphreys. THE EVENING CHORUS. HarperCollins, 2015. 

Set during WW II and a few years after, The EVENING CHORUS begins with an RAF pilot shot down, picked up, and imprisoned as a POW, somewhere in Germany. The different rules for officers and enlisted prisoners surprised me. And the difficulty the officers had, trying to keep themselves busy, amused, while unable to work. The protagonist takes up bird-watching. Subsequent chapters focus on the wives left alone in England, and other family members, a sister who lost her home during the Blitz. The couplings, shared accommodations that happen because of the bombings, the loss of the men, the disruptions to routine--daily, seasonal, and generational. Enjoyable in the same vein as this writer's COVENTRY.