Book Review From Rick's Library: All The Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner

4 min read

Hi, I'm Rick Barron, your host, and welcome to That's Life, I Swear

I walked into a bookstore a while back and my eye caught the title of a book that gave me pause to say, what? Wasn't quite sure what to make of it. The title of the book, "All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days", by Rebecca Donner. I was curious and read the book cover summary and I was hooked. As I started to read the book, I can honestly that it was a "I couldn't put the book down" moment.

Let's jump into this 

So, let’s talk about the book

Mildred Harnack. Courtesy of: UW Madison News

I want to be sure not to give away too much about this book, as it’s such a great read and don’t want to give away anything. The story presents a timeline of the extraordinary life of Rebecca Donner's great-great-aunt, Mildred Harnack. Rebecca's aunt was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As her aunt continued her education, she enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Germany. Unfortunately, the time period wasn’t ideal. Mildred was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was here that she witnessed firsthand the rise of the Nazi party. As the story unfolds, we learn that in 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment, a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the most influential underground resistance group in Berlin. 

She later became a spy, transporting top-secret intelligence to the Allies.

Rebecca Donner weaves the story about the life of her great-great-aunt Mildred by going through numerous government archives, survivor's interviews, old photos, diaries, and letters.

Rebecca spent an enormous amount of time gathering extensive information that took her to countries such as Germany, Russia, England, and the United States. 

Through her long journey of piecing together this story, Donner shares a section in the book titled “The Boy”. Without reviewing too much, this section of the book refers to Donald Heath Jr., the 11-year-old son of Donald Heath, an American diplomat who was gathering anti-Nazi intelligence while working for the embassy in Berlin. Donald Jr., or Young Don, as he was called, visited Mildred in her apartment periodically. It turns out those visits were for Mildred to slip information for his father into his knapsack. 

Donald Jr. was aiding the resistance by acting as a courier. 

It took a while but, Rebecca was finally able to track down Young Don in California and interviewed him in 2016, when he was 89. 

Rebecca's writing talent provides fluid prose and vivid character sketches that make you keep the pages turning as the story unfolds. This remarkable story has other twists and turns; thus, it's well worth the read.

So, let’s talk about the author 

Author, Rebecca Donner. Courtesy of: New York Times

Rebecca Donner is Canadian-born. Her book, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days,  won the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography 

Donner was educated at the University of California at Berkeley and Columbia University. She is the author of Sunset Terrace,a critically acclaimed novel, and Burnout, a graphic novel about eco-terrorism. Her essays and reviews are found in numerous publications, including the New York Times and Bookforum.

Rebecca Donner was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford in 2023, and was awarded a 2022 Guggenheim fellowship.

So, here’s a little tepid of information on how this book came about.

On an annual basis, Rebecca Donner visited her great-grandmother’s home in Chevy Chase, Md. In the kitchen there was a wall she and her brother would stand against the kitchen wall to measure their heights marked in pencil. Then, when she turned 9, she noticed the letter M near one of the faintest lines.

“Who’s that?” she asked her great-grandmother Harriette, who muttered, “Oh, that’s Mildred.”

Arvid Harnack and Mildred Harnack. Courtesy of: Economist

Donner’s curiosity was piqued, but it wasn’t until she was 16 that she learned the truth: Mildred Harnack was an American spy during World War II. Along with her husband, Arvid Harnack.

What drew my interest in reading this book

I’ve always been deeply interested in the events that led to World War II and the numerous atrocities that unfolded. The one glaring moment in the war, for me, was what happened to the Jews and those who took a defiant stance to oppose Hitler's sick dream of world domination. 

As you read the story, Donner's literacy method in writing in the present tense, proves to be an effective way for conveying what it felt like in real time to experience the tightening vise of the Nazi regime. The book is a page-turning book of political terror. Chapter by chapter, you’ll be amazed at the remarkable story of the resistance fighter Mildred Harnack, and her unbelievable bravery, against the backdrop of daily life in Germany. 

Another aspect of the book that gave me cause to read is that it's been over 80 years since World War II ended. Yet today, we see countries splitting into autocracies and wanting to do away with democracies in various parts of the world. Even in the United States, we still have to preserve and fight for what we thought was a safe democracy, but this time, in our own backyard. 

What can we learn from this story? What's the take away? 

What I took from this book in terms of lessons, it's that our world was in a fragile state over 80 years ago. Today, our world is like a delicate Christmas bulb that, if not held carefully, can quickly fall to the ground breaking into many pieces. 

This story is still relevant, even today. The story reveals how quickly a country’s constitution, free press, and democracy can be demolished, within the blink of an eye. Nothing, even democracy, is guaranteed.

Plotzensee Prison where Mildred was a prisoner. Courtesy of: Wikipedia

This book is for those who admire those who will not sit ideally by, and have their freedoms taken away. It's a story that tells us but one of many stories about one individual who looked at their demon in the eye and said, "I will not fall to you."

I believe Rebecca said it best during her acceptance speech when she won the National Book Critics Circle Award, Rebecca said, and I quote, 

“The men and women Mildred Harnack recruited into her underground resistance group were factory workers and office workers, artists and journalists, students and professors. While so many in Germany supported Hitler’s regime, or chose inaction, they chose to risk their lives – and resist. The story of their audacious courage serves as an inspiration to us all during this fraught time in the world.” 

End quote

Those words were true in the 1940’s and unfortunately, they’re true even today.

Well, there you go. That's life, I swear.

For further information regarding the material covered in this episode, I invite you to visit my website, that you can find on either Apple Podcasts/iTunes or Google Podcasts, for show notes calling out key pieces of content mentioned and the episode transcript.

As always, I thank you for listening. 

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