All of You Every Single One, Beatrice Hitchman
“Her lead characters’ mutual tenderness and loyalty give her historical novel a rare immediacy”
In 1910, Julia Lindquist and Eve Perret arrive in Vienna hoping to make a new life together. They rent an apartment in the Jewish quarter of Leopoldstadt, where they soon befriend their motherly landlady Frau Berndt and their flamboyant neighbour Rolf Gruber. All seems to be going well, until Rolf enters a troubled relationship with the married Emil, and Julia starts to long for a child. With assistance from Ada Bauer, Emil’s cousin and an abuse victim, Rolf manages to help Julia realize her dream. However, nearly three decades later, the friends face a greater challenge – how to survive in an Austria that has been annexed by Nazi Germany.
Beatrice Hitchman offers a vivid sense of Vienna’s cultural and intellectual richness pre-World War I – including a cameo appearance by Sigmund Freud – and of the oppressive atmosphere following the 1938 Anschluss. She also writes with insight about complex Viennese social structures, especially the contrast between the bourgeois respectability of wealthy families like Ada’s and the liberated bohemian ethos of Leopoldstadt. Her descriptions of the city are wonderful: its streetlights that turn ‘the sky coppery-mauve’ and the ‘young and slender’ silver birches in the Jewish cemetery.
But perhaps her novel’s greatest strength is its thoughtful exploration of relationships. Eve and Julia’s devoted long-term partnership and Rolf’s passionate mid-life romance with cellist Anders are every bit as moving as the straight love affairs that fill much of English literature. More still, Hitchman reminds us of the importance of other kinds of love, such as the maternal solicitude Julia and Eve show Elsa, and the enduring camaraderie between the women and Rolf. Her lead characters’ mutual tenderness and loyalty give her historical novel a rare immediacy. It is emotionally engaging from first page to last.
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