A TINY REVIEW

The readers of Yours Is the Earth did not know necessarily why Robert de Launay became a prisoner of the Germans. Perhaps he was just one of a group of soldiers taken together, or it could have been the Nazis knew exactly who he was, a member of the French landed gentry. At one point, Margaret raised the American flag at L’Ormeau, to protect the chateau from takeover for Nazi offices. America, of course, was not in the war at that time.

Vail’s writing in the above chapter, designed to go into her novel, does not show the same quality of writing found in her nonfiction book. Writing a novel demands a different capability—not harder—just different. Her novel had not gone through an editor’s scrutiny while my guess is the published book had quite a busy relationship with the blue pencil. The novel excerpt contains an overabundant use of the Passive Voice, a definite no-no to an editor. But Vail had an exceptionally timely and interesting story to tell and the editor took the gamble. The winner in that gamble included every reader of the story Yours Is the Earth. ♥