about the author

During a career at the University of Delaware as the Elias Ahuja Professor of French and a specialist of 19th-century French literature and culture, Mary Donaldson-Evans published several books, including Medical Examinations and Madame Bovary at the Movies. Following her retirement, she reinvented herself as the author of memoirs and short fiction. Her creative works have been published by The Lowestoft Chronicle, The Literary Hatchet, Boomer Lit Magazine and others. Inspired by the discovery of a trove of letters exchanged by her parents during World War II, Behind the Lines is her first book-length non-academic project.

about the book

The year 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the German surrender in World War II. The 10th Mountain Division, the army’s first mountaineering unit, led the Allies to victory in Italy in 1945. Their soldiers are often celebrated for their heroism and ingenuity and remembered for their steep losses in the campaign to defeat Nazi Germany. Yet it has been estimated that no more than 14% of troops overseas in World War II ever saw combat.Behind the Lines is the story of a 10th Mountain Division soldier from the other 86%, someone who toiled to deliver munitions and supplies to troops on the battlefront and who documented his experiences in letters home to his wife in Minnesota. Narrated by the soldier’s daughter who, some 70 years later, finally read the correspondence between her parents and became acquainted with them as they were when she was a baby, the experiences of this soldier and of the wife he left behind reveal the day-to-day challenges of their plight, the tensions but also the unexpected rewards of their situation, and the all-too-common prejudices of a tumultuous era often dubbed ‘heroic’. Behind the Lines mines the correspondence to describe the anguish and the longing of a young couple separated by a war that would change the course of modern civilisation.

news

DISTINGUISHED FAVORITE BY THE INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD

My book, Behind the Lines, has been recognized as a 2022 Distinguished Favorite by the Independent Press Award. Get more details here.

KIRKUS REVIEW

Behind the Lines has been favorably reviewed by the prestigious Kirkus Reviews.  Referring to the wartime correspondence that provided the impetus for the writing of this book, the reviewer writes: ........

INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD

I’m pleased to announce that Behind the Lines has been selected as a 2022 Distinguished Favorite by Independent Press Awards in the category “Military Nonfiction,” one of three to be selected in thi ........

blogs

GIOVANNI SULLA

During our 2017 pilgrimage to the battlefields of Emilia Romagna with the descendants of soldiers who fought in the 10th Mountain Division, my husband and I had the pleasure of meeting many Italians ........

A WINDOW ONTO THE PAST: LETTERS OF A WORLD WAR II SOLDIER

The discovery, more than two decades after his death, of my father’s World War II correspondence with my mother, opened a window onto a past of which I had no conscious memory.  Just eight months ol ........

REMEMBERING A WORLD WAR II SOLDIER

It all started with a doll. My father may have souvenired weapons for friends when he returned from service in Italy in World War II, but for me, he had a doll. I knew nothing of war or fighting or ........

contact

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