No Traveller Returns

In Anne-Louise Mathie’s new book ‘No Traveller Returns’ we follow intrepid and inquisitive Marie from the uneasy atmosphere of her childhood home in Les Landes, South West France, dominated by the raw disappointment of her mother, to her friendship with Alain, a young Jewish boy, who opens her naive eyes to the foreboding influence of the Nazis in 1930s France.

Her friendship with Alain sets in motion an insatiable desire for adventure and a thirst for truth that will influence every decision throughout her life. We read as she learns to navigate the apparent confusion and paradoxes in Alain’s Judaism and her own and others’ experiences of Catholism and her experiences with the French Resistance.

Providing a back-drop for Marie’s ever-maturing ideas about life and religion is the sensitively described detail of her home in Les Landes. The wild, unpredictable landscape of South-West France is described with real feeling and we get a sense that Mathie has a love for this lonely coastline, so far removed from the white, slick sands of the Mediterranean.

Mathie has painted Marie’s character with wide and broad brush-strokes. She moves effortlessly from painting the uneasy and relatable picture of Marie’s family dynamics, through to Marie’s ever-changing understanding of herself and the wide variety of the people she meets, culminating in an adventure story of high peril where we see Marie’s bravery and resilience shaped by all the people she has encountered in her life.

It is difficult to pin a genre to this book and ultimately it is unneeded. Mathie’s talent lies in her ability to depict a character who is genuinely relatable whilst taking the reader on a journey with the most thrilling and unexpected events.

Marie’s life takes on unexpected new adventures as she moves from the familiarity of Les Landes to Paris where she is intrigued by the story of 4 Jewish orphans, who have met unknown ends in Palestine and the USSR. The pace of the novel changes here in this second section. From Part 1’s dream-like descriptions of Les Landes and the almost angelic figure of Alain who maintains such influence over her life, comes a more energetic and pacy second part. At this stage, Mathie shows her ability to interweave philosophical discussions on religion and the war with fast paced dialogue and plot as Marie travels to the USSR to continue her investigations as to what happened to 2 of the Jewish orphans.

There have been many books written on the fate of the Jews at the merciless hands of the Nazis during WW2 but this book is unique in its descriptions and insight into the lives of Jewish people after the war, in such different places as the USSR and later on in Algeria. Mathie’s own interest in Jewish History resonates from every page and the reader becomes completely immersed in the stories of hardship experienced by the Jews long after the war has ended. It is to Mathie’s credit that she fully sustains the reader’s interest in what is a largely unfamiliar section of history.

By the concluding section of this book, Marie has fallen in love with the brave and loyal Yussuf; their relationship built on a mutual respect of each others’ different cultures and experiences. Their connection is as real as the circumstances which seek to drive them apart. Mathie is able to sensitively describe their burgeoning love for one another without changing the intelligent, independent Marie into a hopeless and ineffective romantic.

As tragedy unfolds, the return of Marie to Les Landes is a fitting end. This small corner of South West France and the people she has grown up with maintain an influence over her. It is the place where she can be at peace and reflect on the exhilirating, sometimes heart-breaking adventures she has had throughout her life. Mathilde and Marie co-exist, contently co-existing together in a world full of unexpected threats and world events beyond their control.

Mathie has written a novel with real depth and feeling; it spans different time periods and vastly different cultures and countries. The novel manages to be cohesive, despite this, because of Mathie’s masterful storytelling and her crafting of her fully-rounded central character, Marie.

I love a book that educates me without feeling I'm being educated. No Traveller Returns taught me more about social and political issues in France after the German occupation and about the founding of the State of Israel than I ever learned during my formal education.

The narrative is written in the first person as we get to know Marie, a French woman who was born and brought up in the countryside of Les Landes in southern France.

Her story begins with a prologue, shortly after she has been bereaved of the love of her life. We are not told who he is, at what stage in their lives his death has occurred, or how it has happened, which piqued my curiosity and made me eager to find out.

We are transported back to Marie's unhappy childhood, as the only child of a loveless marriage. When she begins school at the age of six her inner world begins to be transformed through her relationships with her inspirational teacher, with her new friend, Alain, and with books and learning.

As a child Marie's thoughts are focussed on herself and her lot (as I guess is the case for most of us). She begins to be more interested in life outside her own small sphere following the German invasion and the establishment of the Vichy Government - to the extent that she becomes actively involved in The Resistance, a move which impacts the path her life subsequently takes.

It's a delight to watch Marie's character develop over the years, shaped by her experiences working as a journalist, as her work takes her to Russia, Indochina and Algeria - places where she witnesses hardship and brutality, but also encounters life-changing love.