Book Details:
Author: Teri M Brown
Release Date: 24th January 2023Series:
Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Generational Fiction
Format: E-book
Pages: 328
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Blurb:
How does a man show his love – for country, for heritage, for family – during a war that sets the three at odds? What sets in motion the necessity to choose one over the other? How will this choice change everything and everyone he loves?
Jacob Miller, a first-generation American, grew up in New Berlin, a small German immigrant town in Ohio where he endured the Great Depression, met his wife, and started a family. Though his early years were not easy, Jacob believes he is headed toward his ‘happily ever after’ until a friend is sent to an internment camp for enemy combatants, and the war lands resolutely on his doorstep.
In An Enemy Like Me, Teri M. Brown uses the backdrop of World War II to show the angst experienced by Jacob, his wife, and his four-year-old son as he leaves for and fights in a war he did not create. She explores the concepts of xenophobia, intrafamily dynamics, and the recognition that war is not won and lost by nations, but by ordinary men and women and the families who support them.
Review
An Enemy Like Me by Teri M Brown is a beautiful historical fiction novel that tells the story of Jacob Miller and how being a true patriot brings him face-to-face with a truth that can shatter anyone’s world: that he is more similar to the enemy that he’d been fighting with than the people he was fighting for. An Enemy Like Me is a beautiful exploration of 2nd, 3rd and even 4th generation immigrants who face discrimination based on their looks, family origins, accent, etc. albeit in different intensity at different times in history.
This story is about a soldier who is trying his best to fight for the country he currently lives in, yet battling emotions, imagining that his previous generations were part of the country that he was fighting with and how this has a profound impact on him. This book also explores the perspective on war from different generational views, providing readers insights into how different people, at other points in time, think about the same historic events and issues that had a great impact on their lives.
An Enemy Like Me explores a lot of themes which will resonate with most readers of historical, literary fiction and war fiction genres. So I’d like to recommend it to all the readers as this book has a lot to offer to all of its readers.
The Reading Bud 