Image- my copy of Little Boy Lost - Heinemann Educational Books
The 2nd World War has recently ended and Hilary Wainwright has travelled to France to meet Jean, a small child who may or may not be his son, missing for 2 years ever since his mother (Hilary’s wife) was arrested by the Gestapo.
Hilary cannot believe that the young boy, tracked down by a friend and member of the resistance, can possibly the right one and,anyway how will he ever know for sure - he has not seen him since the day he was born.
This 1949 novel grips you right from the beginning and gets ever more tense as you desperately hope that Hilary will do the right thing in the end.
Despite all his pretentions and self deceptions, Hilary is a decent and likable man and the scenes where he tries to get to know Jean are immensely touching.Poor attention and everything else starved Jean himself is one of the most realistic and lovable small children I have met in a book.
The 3rd main character is France a shattered country struggling to recover and reconcile itself to the divisions caused by the war.
I loved this book and will be seeking out more by Marghanita Laski.
A little about the author
Marghanita Laski was a journalist, critic, radio panellist and compulsive contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary (she was responsible for about 250,000 quotations!)
She began writing fiction after her son and daughter were born.
Well known during her lifetime she quickly fell out of print after her death.
Persephone Books have now reprinted 3 of her novels.
http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/little-boy-lost-classic.html.
There is a beautiful photograph of Marghanita in the National Portrait Gallery. Here is a link - https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw08584/Marghanita-Laski
Sources used
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marghanita_Laski