‘Tis the season of television specials and re-runs. Last evening, my husband was scrolling channels, looking for something to watch other than Christmas specials or hockey games played by teams he was not interested to watch. Along the way, he paused to watch a World War II clip of soldiers in the trenches and the atrocities and hardships of war.
What does this have to do with The Puppet? When I did my research for this book on the role of the French people during the war and their struggles with the Nazis, I was firmly entrenched in the history taught to me at school. It wasn’t that long post war that I was in school and the version taught to us was a somewhat sanitized British view of the war.
Researching WWII now that history has removed narrow focus and allowed for a wider view was eye-opening. Originally, I planned only a general overview of some of the difficulties of ordinary families caught in the horror and helplessness of war. I was aware of some of it because of the age of some in our community and their direct experiences as children in Europe during these dark times.
It was then that one of the characters in The Puppet, Lise Lalonde, changed direction in my mind. She is a complex woman whose seemingly unbreakable personality shattered upon the reveal of her son’s betrayal. It seemed appropriate that in the journey to redeem her son’s reputation, her background during the war would be revealed and in so doing, the reasons for many of her reactions. It also pleased me that a nice, quiet romance blossomed for her as well.
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