Along the Infinite Sea

September 21, 2015
In Williams’s fifth novel, devotees of her Schuyler sisters can follow the fate of renegade Pepper Schuyler and the aftermath of her affair with a married politician in the fall of 1966. Similar to the author’s other page-turners, there is a parallel story here about another young woman, in this case Annabelle Dommerich, a Christian Frenchwoman whose life in 1935 is upended when her Jewish lover disappears and she ends up marrying a high-ranking German officer. How Annabelle and Pepper cross paths in 1966 is rather contrived—Annabelle purchases the vintage 1936 Mercedes Special Roadster that Pepper has restored, and the car turns out to be the very one that Annabelle and her German husband drove to flee Germany and come to America before World War II began. Unfortunately, the travails faced by Pepper, pregnant with the married politician’s child and on the run from his goons, pale in comparison to Annabelle’s heartbreaking love story and subsequent rebound marriage against the backdrop of Hitler’s rise to power and the horrifying consequences of his regime. Though Williams tries to give both narratives nearly equal weight, Annabelle’s distinctive character and story are far stronger than Pepper’s. Nonetheless, the happy ending will surely satisfy the bestselling author’s many fans.

Kathleen McInerney portrays two determined women in this historical novel. Although they're strangers of different generations, elegant widow Annabelle feels drawn to young Pepper when they meet in 1966. McInerney portrays Annabelle with sophisticated mystery as she connects with Pepper for the purpose of buying Pepper's 1936 Mercedes roadster, for which Annabelle pays more than market value. McInerney provides glimpses of the self-doubt behind Pepper's bravado as the unmarried young woman on the run plans for the birth of her baby. When the novel flashes back to 1930s Germany and Annabelle's intense relationships with her Nazi husband and her Jewish lover, McInerney's portrayal of young Annabelle displays her intelligence and heartbreaking confusion. McInerney is gentle with the German accents, allowing the listener to discern the differences between the two men. N.M.C. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine