Book Review: 'American Bombshell' captures a wartime idyll

American Bombshell, by David King

• American Bombshell
• David King
• Poolbeg, €16.99

THEY say that there is a book in everyone, but most of us do not get around to writing the thing. It is the stuff of dreams to inherit a saga which begs to be curated for publication, and what a story David King has been gifted. 

King, who lives in Kenmare, Co Kerry, has done his research thoroughly and fleshed out the family archives to create the novel  American Bombshell. A fact-based biography of his mother Beryl, during the Second World War, might have been thin, but this fictionalised version provides the depth of character and descriptive colour that some ‘true’ accounts lack.

Although now happy walking the cliffs of Kerry with his dog, King is English and the story is firmly located in the midlands, near the city of Coveringham — a blend perhaps of Birmingham and Coventry. A US airbase nearby supports the Allied effort against Hitler.

As in the latest novel by Sebastian Barry, Old Gods’ Time, the effect of childhood trauma is placed centre stage. The institutional cruelty imposed on young charges by their so-called protectors ranged from daily rape to forced labour and was arguably worse in the Irish religious homes than in this English orphanage.

Nevertheless, Beryl — or Rosie, as her name is transmuted in American Bombshell — is badly affected, not only by her time in care, but by her life at home, with her mentally unstable, obsessive-compulsive mother, Edith.

Rosie was, as a child, beloved by her father but after his death she has found herself despised by the jealous Edith — a woman who also suffered child abuse. This rejection leads to a thirst for love, in the 17-year-old, which she seeks to quench.

Working among women, encouraged into factories by wartime needs, Rosie is still naive, not yet able to read people, but over-confident because of her beauty. She does not realise that, in times of war, behaviour can be more volatile than normal.

Pilot, Eugene Flynn, seems incredibly glamorous, even more than the American film stars who grace the contemporary screens in black and white. Eugene is bright, warm, and colourful and his arms are strong, his kisses ardent and his life experience admirable.

Eugene would prefer to pilot a fighter, thus being responsible only for his own life, a thing that to this unhappy man, is hardly worth preserving, but instead, he has charge of an adoring 10-man crew on his bomber, Luck of the Devil.

By the time he enters Rosie’s life, just before the Allies invade France, Eugene is showing the ill effects of repeated bombing raids. He is a complex character who relies on a variety of chemical crutches to keep functioning.

He also has a burning need for sexual release and has gained a reputation as a ladies’ man.

Eugene carries baggage from his previous life in the States. King hints that there is a woman there, and a wronged brother, a man now in peril in the Pacific theatre. Rosie is, unknowingly, taking a risk when she pairs up with the troubled pilot.

She opens herself to opprobrium when she shacks up with the masculine, socialist Hazel from the shop floor. Hazel is like Eugene: somewhat world-weary and with a predatory attitude towards the young woman.

Rosie must learn fast if she is to navigate safely into the post-war world.

The descriptions of the raids are powerful in American Bombshell but King also creates the pastoral idyll of 1940’s England, mingling the scent of hawthorn and cow parsley with the fumes of aviation fuel. It is a top tale, well told.