Simone in Pieces

Novelist and writing instructor Burroway (Writing Fiction) offers a well-crafted tale of a war orphan’s decades-spanning journey of self-discovery. Simone Lerrante arrives in England during WWII, unable to remember anything about her parents or her previous life in Belgium. Directly after the war, the 16-year-old finds work as a servant to an upper-crust family, but is sent away after being caught having sex with their 13-year-old daughter, Darla. She makes her way to New York City in 1957, and her marriage to a college professor ends in divorce after she terminates a pregnancy. She then lands a teaching job at a small college in Missouri, but the past pulls strongly on her, especially after she sees a documentary about the war and recognizes the woman who took her to England; later, she reconnects with Darla by mail. Burroway alternates Simone’s narration with evocative snippets from other characters’ points of view, such as Simone’s unnamed rescuer, who remembers the smell of war as “a sourness like fireworks,” and Darla, who thinks back on how Simone photographed her and raved about one day becoming a movie star. Burroway gets plenty of mileage from her rootless protagonist’s life. Agent: Margaret Sutherland Brown, Folio Literary Management. (Nov.)