The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is set in January 1946 as London emerges from the Second World War. Many London neighborhoods lie in rubble. The novel's protagonist, Juliet Ashton, is a moderately well-known writer who has lost her home and thirsts for new adventure. During the war, Juliet wrote a column under the pseudonym Izzy Bickerstaff. After the war's conclusion, her publisher and close friend, Sidney Stark, published the columns — known for being quite humorous — in a book called Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War. As the novel opens, Juliet is searching for a more serious topic that she can write about under her own name.
The novel unfolds through a series of correspondences. Unexpectedly, Juliet receives a letter from a man named Dawsey Adams on the island of Guernsey. Guernsey, a farming community, is located on one of the islands located in the English Channel between France and Britain. Dawsey is a native who has come across her name inside a book by Charles Lamb. He writes to her because books are so rare on Guernsey, and he would like to gain more — particularly for the island's book club, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Book Summary. (n.d.). Retrieved 26 October 2022, from https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/the-guernsey-literary-and-potato-peel-pie-society/book-summary
Summary
Note: The novel does not have normal chapter divisions; instead, the story is told through various correspondences between the characters. Therefore, this literature note has been divided by timeframe to more easily convey the action and analysis of the story.
The novel opens in January 1946, as London recovers from World War II and much of London lies in rubble. Juliet Ashton, a 32-year-old writer, has lost her home and now resides in a borrowed flat. During the war, she wrote a humor column for The London Times under the pseudonym of Izzy Bickerstaff. Her amusing war observations were eventually compiled into a book entitled Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War, published by Stephens & Stark Publishing Co.
January 1946. (n.d.). Retrieved 26 October 2022, from https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/g/the-guernsey-literary-and-potato-peel-pie-society/summary-and-analysis/january-1946
Over the course of the German occupation, the Nazis sent thousands of forced laborers known as Todt workers to Guernsey to fortify the island. Amelia tells Juliet mostly about the concrete bunkers the Germans had…
During the war, nearly all of Guernsey's trees were cut down as firewood, leaving the island bare in the present. Because of this, the absence of the trees comes to represent a sort of paradise…
For the islanders, the sea represents freedom and, in some cases, the end of the war. Amelia writes about resuming her evening walks along the cliffs and notes that if she looks out at the…
Prior to the start of the novel, Juliet wrote columns and a book under the pseudonym Izzy Bickerstaff. As the novel opens, she admits that the book she's working on—a book that would also be…
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society follows Juliet, a London author, as she strikes up a correspondence with Dawsey Adams and other residents of the island of Guernsey. It's 1946, almost a year after the end of World War Two, and as England begins the work of putting the country back together, Juliet becomes fascinated by Guernsey residents' stories of the German occupation of the island and how the islanders dealt with…
As the novel follows Juliet and reveals the past compositions of her family, as well as the compositions of other characters' families, it's telling that few of the families are conventionally organized with two married parents and biological children. However, this is seldom seen as a bad thing—in many cases, people are simply happy to be able to care for children after their parents' deaths in the war—and indeed, there are situations where one's biological…
When Juliet decides that she'd like to write about Guernsey for her Times articles and then her book, she asks the members of the Literary Society to ask other Guernsey residents to write her about their experiences of the German occupation. As the letters flood in, Juliet is struck by the way the islanders write about the Germans: while some of the Nazis were inarguably cruel to the people of Guernsey, others demonstrated surprising kindness…
Over the course of the novel, Juliet becomes engaged three times, and at the novel's close, she's finally set to follow through and marry Dawsey Adams days later. By exploring Juliet's previous two engagements to Lieutenant Rob Dartry and Mark Reynolds, particularly in terms of how her relationships with those two men intersect with Juliet's desire to work and the societal norms of the mid-1940s, the novel suggests that Juliet is in a unique…