SENZI: A Woman to Remember

As a 20-year-old, novelist Jagoda spent a year as a WWII German prisoner of war in Bebenhausen ("a Swabian hamlet of 300 souls" between Bavaria and Switzerland), and in this short memoir portrays the lives and relationships of American prisoners, German guards and the farm community where he was kept. Senzi, or Crescent Markthaler, was an unmarried 40-year-old German Catholic the author developed a deep friendship with, working daily on her family's farm. She had been the only person in town to vote against the Nazis and remained defiant in her willingness to embrace the young American without regard to the opinions of her gruff brother and nephew. Jagoda speaks German, and his position as interpreter allows insights into the Germans (via lots of reconstructed dialogue) otherwise absent from many POW memoirs. ("A truly modern shitter, no, Herr Robart?" wryly remarks one guard at a hole in their quarters' floor.) By the time Jagoda escapes near war's end, he's had time to describe perceptively a great deal of Swabian farm family culture, his platonic friendship with Senzi and his own war stories. Those with an interest in the small corners of war will be satisfied. (Dec.)

Forecast: "Designed to fill the void between conventional print publishers and the new breed of vanity publishers," Superior books hopes to give "undiscovered writing talent a real chance to be discovered by mainstream publishers and by the reading public." This genial memoir may not break directly onto the shelves, but it points to a middle way for getting off the slush pile and onto Amazon.