REVIEW: 'Enchanted Islands,' by Allison Amend

Few spy thrillers open in Duluth, but Allison Amend's unusual and deep "Enchanted Islands" isn't your run-of-the-mill espionage tale. Loosely based on the lives of Frances and Ainslie Conway, who lived on the Galápagos Islands during the late 1930s and early 1940s, then again after World War II, Amend's novel manages to encompass a woman's life, the story of a marriage, a tense standoff between Allied and Axis operatives, and a sensitive examination of women's friendship. Not all of these succeed equally, but "Enchanted Islands" is still a thought-provoking read.

An 82-year-old widow, Frances Conway narrates the story from a California retirement home. One of the first things she tells us: "A curious effect of childlessness is that your story disappears with you," and her words should be marked, because for a woman born in 1882 to have reached old age without progeny is unusual, like her life: "for that reason alone record should be made of it."

Frances and Rosalie begin life in Duluth's Jewish immigrant neighborhood, but in different circumstances. Rosalie Mendler's German family has enough money for "real meat, not just chicken," while Frances Frankowski's parents "spoke only the most rudimentary English." What the girls have in common is discontent, strong enough to propel them to new lives in Chicago when Rosalie becomes pregnant.

Rosalie's mistakes will eventually drive her into the arms of a rich Jewish husband, while Frances meanders into working for the Department of the Navy on the West Coast. Years pass until her boss asks her to consider a strange assignment: marrying an older operative and moving with him to one of the world's most remote places.

This is where Amend's strengths as a novelist gain full flower. She and we know that the women of Frances and Rosalie's time did not have modern choices, but she also knows that Frances would not have the language to speak of repression and sexism and arrested development. Instead, the author wisely allows Frances to show us what it was like coming to terms with a limited marriage and finally, the limits of a friendship that she did not understand back home with Rosalie.

As it happens, one of the only other couples who inhabit Santiago is German. Elke and Heinrich will, inevitably, turn out to be enemies. However, Elke and Frances Conway develop a bond that transcends war, treachery and privation. Elke teaches Frances that loving care takes many forms, some of them strange to us and yes, at times, enchanted. Borne up by this knowledge, the fictional Frances forgives — herself, her husband, Rosalie — but fortunately for readers, does not forget. Her unusual story should get top billing in your seasonal TBR pile.

Bethanne Patrick reviews regularly for the Washington Post and NPR Books. A member of the board of the National Book Critics Circle, she is editor of "The Books That Changed My Life" (Regan Arts).

Enchanted Islands
By: Allison Amend.
Publisher: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 306 pages, $26.95.