The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

doubt it’s a duck.)

Would you care for a few suggestions? You could ask me who his favorite author is (Dos Passos! Hemingway!!). Or his favorite color (blue, not sure what shade, probably royal). Is he a good dancer? (Yes, far better than I, never steps on my toes, but doesn’t talk or even hum while dancing. Doesn’t hum at all so far as I know.) Does he have brothers or sisters? (Yes, two older sisters, one married to a sugar baron and the other widowed last year. Plus one younger brother, dismissed with a sneer as an ass.)

So—now that I’ve done all your work for you, perhaps you can answer your own ridiculous question, because I can’t. I feel addled around Mark, which might be love but might not. It certainly isn’t restful. I’m rather dreading this evening, for instance. Another dinner party, very brilliant, with men leaning across the table to make a point and women gesturing with their cigarette holders. Oh dear, I want to nuzzle into my sofa, but I have to get up and put on an evening dress. Love aside, Mark is a terrible strain on my wardrobe.

Now, darling, don’t fret about Sidney. He’ll be stalking around in no time.

Love,

Juliet

From Juliet to Dawsey

25th March, 1946

Dear Mr. Adams,

I have received a long letter (two, in fact!) from a Miss Adelaide Addison, warning me not to write about the Society in my article. If I do, she will wash her hands of me forever. I will try to bear that affliction with fortitude. She does work up quite a head of steam about “Jerry-bags,” doesn’t she?

I have also had a long letter from Clovis Fossey about poetry, and one from Isola Pribby about the Bronte sisters. Aside from delighting me—they gave me brand-new thoughts for my article. Between them, you, Mr. Ramsey, and Mrs. Maugery, Guernsey is virtually writing my article for me. Even Miss Adelaide Addison has done her bit—defying her will be such a pleasure.

I don’t know as much about children as I would like to. I am godmother to a wonderful three-year-old boy named Dominic, the son of my friend Sophie. They live in Scotland, near Oban, and I don’t get to see him often. I am always astonished, when I do, at his increasing personhood—no sooner had I gotten used to carrying about a warm lump of baby than he stopped being one and started scurrying around on his own. I missed six months, and lo and behold, he learned how to talk! Now he talks to himself, which I find terribly endearing since I do, too.

A mongoose, you may tell Kit, is a weaselly-looking creature with very sharp teeth and a bad temper. It is the only natural enemy of the cobra and is impervious to snake venom. Failing snakes, it snacks on scorpions. Perhaps you could get her one for a pet.

Yours,

Juliet Ashton

P.S. I had second thoughts about sending this letter—what if Adelaide Addison is a friend of yours? Then I decided no, she couldn’t possibly be—so off it goes.

From John Booker to Juliet

27th March, 1946

Dear Miss Ashton,

Amelia Maugery has asked me to write to you, for I am a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—though I only read one book over and over. It was The Letters of Seneca: Translated from Latin in One Volume, with Appendix. Seneca and the Society, betwixt them, kept me from the direful life of a drunk.

From 1940 to 1944, I pretended to the German authorities that I was Lord Tobias Penn-Piers—my former employer, who had fled to England in a frenzy when Guernsey was bombed. I was his valet and I stayed. My true name is John Booker, and I was born and bred in London.

With the others, I was caught out after curfew on the night of the pig roast. I can’t remember it with any clarity. I expect I was tipsy, because I usually was. I recall soldiers shouting and waving guns about and Dawsey holding me upright. Then came Elizabeth’s voice. She was talking about books—I couldn’t fathom why. After that, Dawsey was pulling me through a pasture at great speed, and then I fell into bed. That’s all.

But you want to know about the influence of books on my life, and as I’ve said, there was only one. Seneca. Do you know who he was? He was a Roman philosopher who wrote letters to imaginary friends telling them how to behave for the rest of their lives. Maybe that sounds dull, but the letters aren’t—they’re witty. I think you learn more if you’re laughing at the same time.

It seems to me that his words travel well—to all men in all times. I will give you a living sample: take the Luftwaffe and their hairdos. During the Blitz, the Luftwaffe took off from Guernsey and joined in with the big bombers on their way to London. They only flew at night so their days were their own, to spend in St. Peter Port as they liked. And how did they spend them? In beauty parlors: having their nails buffed, their faces massaged, their eyebrows shaped, their hair waved and coiffed. When I saw them in their hairnets, walking five abreast down the street, elbowing Islanders off the sidewalk, I thought of Seneca’s words about the Praetorian Guard. He’d written —“who of these would not rather see Rome disordered than his hair.”

I will tell you how I came to pretend to be my former employer. Lord Tobias wanted to sit out the war in a safe place, so he purchased La Fort manor on Guernsey. He had spent World War I in the Caribbean but had suffered greatly from prickly heat there.

In the spring of 1940, he moved to La Fort with most of his possessions, including Lady Tobias. Chausey, his London butler, had locked himself in the pantry and refused to come. So I, his valet, came in Chausey’s stead, to supervise the placing of his furniture, the hanging of his draperies, the polishing of his silver, and the stocking of his wine cellar. It was there I bedded each bottle, gentle as a baby to its crib, in its little rack.

Just as the last picture was being hung on the wall, the German planes flew over and bombed St. Peter Port. Lord Tobias, panicking at all the racket, called the captain of his yacht and ordered him to “Redd up the ship!” We were to load the boat with his silver, his paintings, his bibelots, and, if enough room, Lady Tobias, and set sail at once for England.

I was the last one up the gangway, with Lord Tobias screaming, “Hurry up, man! Hurry up, the Huns are coming!”

My true destiny struck me in that moment, Miss Ashton. I still had the key to his Lordship’s wine cellar. I thought of all those bottles of wine, champagne, brandy, cognac that didn’t make it back to the yacht—and me all alone amongst them. I thought of no more bells, of no more livery, of no more Lord Tobias. In fact, of no more being in service at all.

I turned my back on him and quickly walked back down the gangway. I ran up the road to La Fort and watched the yacht sail away, Lord Tobias still screaming. Then I went inside, laid a fire, and stepped down to the wine cellar. I took down a bottle of claret and drew my first cork. I let the wine breathe. Then I returned to the library, sipped, and began to read The Wine-Lover’s Companion.

I read about grapes, tended the garden, slept in silk pajamas—and drank wine. And so it went until September when Amelia Maugery and Elizabeth McKenna came to call on me. Elizabeth I knew slightly—she and I had chatted several times among the market stalls—but Mrs. Maugery was a stranger to me. Were they going to turn me in to the constable? I wondered.

No. They were there to warn me. The Commandant of Guernsey had ordered all Jews to report to the Grange Lodge Hotel and register. According to the Commandant, our ID cards would merely be marked “Juden” and then we were free to go home. Elizabeth knew my mother was Jewish; I had mentioned it once. They had come to tell me that I must not, under any circumstances, go to the Grange Lodge Hotel.

But that wasn’t all. Elizabeth had considered my predicament thoroughly (more thoroughly than I) and made a plan. Since all Islanders were to have identity cards anyway, why couldn’t I declare myself to be Lord Tobias Penn-Piers himself ? I could claim that, as a visitor, all my documents had been left behind in my London bank. Amelia was sure Mr. Dilwyn would be happy to back up my impersonation, and he was. He and Amelia went with me to the Commandant’s Office, and we all swore that I was Lord Tobias Penn-Piers.

It was Elizabeth who came up with the finishing touch. The Germans were taking over all of Guernsey’s grand