When a Man Writes a Woman

What fun we had discussing A City of Women, a suspenseful novel set in 1943 Berlin. And again I am reminded how literary taste is so individual. I chose this book because I love it and believe the author was convincing writing from a woman’s point-of-view, but many in our book group at One More Page Books disagreed.

Our narrator, Sigrid, is a blond, beautiful, but bored typist in the patent office. She escapes from her dreary gray life sharing an apartment with her Nazi mother-in-law by going to the cinema. It is there in the dark she finds more than fantasy. She finds love or a semblance of it in the form of her married Jewish lover Egon and, more importantly, a purpose with Ericha, who’s part of an underground helping Jews survive in hiding.

Some OMP book clubbers thought Sigrid was mere male fantasy, a lustful woman ready to bed down with anyone. But the Berlin of ’43 was a city of women. Sigrid’s choices are limited, but she makes the best of it. She’s an anti-heroine, unfaithful to her cold soldier husband, yet a rescuer to those Auntie hides in her attic.

We read, we met, we discussed. No one’s mind was changed, but what fun we had exchanging ideas.
Next month we’ll be up BITCH CREEK. Come join us.