Award-winning Southern fiction writer Terry Roberts returns to western North Carolina in his second novel, A Short Time to Stay Here. The Great War is ramping up in Europe and the Mountain Park Hotel of Hot Springs, North Carolina has been repurposed as a detention center for German sailors who were in U.S. ports at the start of the war. Stephen Robbins, proprietor of the hotel, is adjusting to his role, shifting from resort host to detention camp supervisor. A new arrival in town, Anna Ulmann, has come to Hot Springs to photograph the locals, but, on a deeper level, is looking for an escape from her controlling husband and New York lifestyle.
Robbins is a proud American and a child of the mountains of North Carolina, but he's also sympathetic to the Germans under his watch. Unlike some of his neighbors, he sees Germans as his fellow men and insists that they be treated as such. His attitude doesn't win him any points with his estranged cousin, the sheriff, or with the national press, who thinks he's too coddling. But he does find love with the exotic New York photographer, who becomes his confidant and companion during her stay in Hot Springs.
A Short Time to Stay Here is enjoyable on several levels. I like war stories like this which give a personal, home front perspective. Some of the local boys go to Europe to fight and don't come home. Although the Germans held in Hot Springs are non-combatants, some are ex-military and the animosity toward all of them is palpable. The opposition that Robbins faces in town turns violent. As he digs into the schemes of some of the townspeople his life and future are endangered. Finally, as with Roberts's previous novel That Bright Land, he beautifully and lovingly captures the life and land of western North Carolina. A Short Time to Stay Here is a good story that is a great pleasure to read.
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