I’m currently reading The Alice Network, and I’m finding it incredibly reassuring, despite its harrowing reality. I mean we’ve got war, betrayal, Nazis, inhumanity, poverty and famine. Trouble, no? But you know what we also have? A clear and agreed-upon enemy. Shades of gray, sure, but always with the awareness and omnipresence of Good and Evil. It made me think of Dory Previn’s Play It Again, Sam. It’s a record my parents had, and I loved it, the craziness of all her songs. But that one? That one is hitting me hard right now.

I mean, there are books like All the Light We Cannot See, which play out amid Nazism while trying to hold on to the humanity of all involved—even the Nazis. But generally, and rightly of course, books that even tangentially touch on Nazis, or Germany in WWII, do so with a clear understanding that Nazi ideology is the very essence of wrong, bad, evil. Of course that’s reassuring right now, when that same ideology is running rampant and we all seem to be in one of those dreams where you’re trying to scream and run, but your legs can’t move. Maybe, too, these WWII books are great because they remind us that there used to be things that we all agreed upon.

I haven’t finished The Alice Network yet. But it is offering my an oh-so-welcome respite these days. Play it, Sam/Play it for me/Take me where I want to be/Back to you, and good old World War Two/I just can’t face today.