The Happy Foreigner

A forgotten classic by the author of National Velvet. In late 1918 a young Englishwoman named Fanny arrives to volunteer as a driver with the French army in World War I only to learn that the war is over. She stays anyway and what follows is a haunting and lyrical portrait of postwar France told in a simple singular style that will stay with the reader long after the book is over. Despite the potentially grim setting the book feels light and almost dreamlike more poem than prose. At once a distinctively female yet detached meditation on the aftermath of war and the indomitable nature of the human spirit. A unique voice hard to describe but richly experienced.