In Our Midst

by Nancy Jensen

Overview

Drawing upon a long-suppressed episode in American history, when thousands of German immigrants were rounded up and interned following the attack on Pearl Harbor, In Our Midst tells the story of one family’s fight to cling to the ideals of freedom and opportunity that brought them to America.

Nina and Otto Aust, along with their teenage sons, feel the foundation of their American lives crumbling when, in the middle of the annual St. Nikolas Day celebration in the Aust Family Restaurant, their most loyal customers, one after another, turn their faces away and leave without a word. The next morning, two FBI agents seize Nina by order of the president, and the restaurant is ransacked in a search for evidence of German collusion.

Ripped from their sons and from each other, Nina and Otto are forced to weigh increasingly bitter choices to stay together and stay alive. Recalling a forgotten chapter in history, In Our Midst illuminates a nation gripped by suspicion, fear, and hatred strong enough to threaten all bonds of love—for friends, family, community, and country.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938603150
Publisher:	Dzanc Books
Publication date:	12/03/2024
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nancy Jensen’s best-selling novel The Sisters was selected by the Independent Booksellers Association as a #1 Indie Next Pick, and included by Kirkus Reviews on its list for Best Fiction of 2011.  She has been awarded an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.  Her first book, Window: Stories and Essays, was published by Fleur-de-Lis Press in 2009. She teaches in the Bluegrass Writers Studio at Eastern Kentucky Universityand shares her home with five rescued cats.

Reading Group Guide

In Our Midst: Reading Group Guide

1. Mr. Griffin says, “When people are afraid, they’ll hand over their rights as willingly as they’d hand over pennies for bread. But not until they’ve handed over other people’s rights first.” What was your reaction to that passage? Can you think of other times in our history that the “systemic repression” Mr. Griffin cites occurred or of systemic oppression occurring now?

2. How would you describe Nina and Otto’s relationship as a couple and their relationship with each of their sons at the beginning of the story? How do those relationships change through the course of the story?

3. Otto consciously rejects initiating the process to attain US citizenship. If you’re a US citizen, how did that make you feel? If you’re an immigrant who has attained citizenship or is in the process of obtaining it, how did you feel about his decision?

4. One of the ideas central to In Our Midst is family love and loyalty. In what ways do members of the Aust family make sacrifices for one another?

5. In Our Midst also deals with the idea of "the kindness of strangers." Can you think of specific examples, small and large, of that motif in your own life? Should strangers be regarded as enemies or new friends?

6. Were there some characters about whom you felt strongly? Ones whom you sometimes liked, sometimes disliked? Why might a fiction writer want to avoid creating characters who are either "saints" or "sinners"?

7. Would you have made the same choice Nina did, joining your family in an internment camp? If you had been the one arrested and placed in an internment camp, would you have urged your spouse to join you?

8. Which of the characters in In Our Midst do you consider the most American, according to your definition of fundamental American values?

9. What did you notice when you first looked at the cover? How did the cover image become more meaningful as you read the novel?

10. What do you think motivated Mr. Beale and Mr. Griffin to help the Austs?

11. How did you feel as you read about conditions in the internment camps? Prior to reading this book, were you aware of the internment of German- and Italian-Americans during WWII? 12. Music, singing, and the power of lyrics to connect to or express deep emotion recur throughout the story. Which of these moments made the strongest impression on you? Are there songs or poems that deeply connect you to key moments in your life, to your sense of beauty, or to your feelings about your home or country?

13. Throughout history, societies have identified “insiders” and “outsiders.”
a. As she experiences life under the label of an “enemy alien,” Nina recalls an exchange with an African-American family outside the restaurant that she comes to realize was misinterpreted and, therefore, accepted by her patrons. What do these experiences communicate about American values during the early 1940s?
b. The boys who beat Hugh are newly enlisted “good” Americans, and the men who torture Gerhard are Nazis. How are their actions and underlying motivations the same and how are they different?

Editorial Reviews

02/17/2020

Jensen (The Sisters) explores the effects of the U.S. entry into WWII on a German-American family in Indiana in this touching tale. Otto and Nina Aust and their teenage sons, Kurt and Gerhard, all immigrants and proud Americans, are torn from their restaurant business and home by FBI agents the day after the U.S. enters the war in 1941. While Nina is interrogated, the others are thrown into distant prison camps as “alien enemies.” Jensen paints a harrowing picture of the suspicion, scapegoating, and violence on the part of the camp’s guards and between those interned there, such as the Nazi sympathizers who beat Gerhard nearly to death. The gloom is offset by cheering scenes of goodwill and courage, as German-Americans give each other material and emotional support over the years spent in the camps, and entertain each other with stand-up routines inspired by Laurel and Hardy and theatrical performances of scenes from Faust. Jensen admirably pulls off the balancing act between an emotionally gripping narrative and adherence to historical facts without becoming pedantic. Each of the Austs and their neighbors Iris, Everett, Bess (Kurt’s sweetheart), and Hugh (whom Gerhard loves) animate the story with their loyalties and struggles. Jensen’s satisfying fictional account of a lesser-known chapter of U.S. history resonates chillingly with today’s headlines. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"A thoroughly researched work of truth-telling, In Our Midst shines the light of 'liberty and justice' on our history and reveals another horror that must be acknowledged. Jensen knows how to transport the reader into the domestic side of WWII; through taste and touch, sight and sound, we are there. From joy and delight to despair and horror, every character struggles to create and sustain their unique authenticity. To survive, each character must learn to blend aspirations with realities."
—Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife and Four Spirits

"Good people suffer terrible injustices when war reasserts tribal loyalties. ... A sad, and sadly still relevant, history lesson in fictional form."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Touching...Jensen admirably pulls off the balancing act between an emotionally gripping narrative and adherence to historical facts...Jensen’s satisfying fictional account of a lesser-known chapter of U.S. history resonates chillingly with today’s headlines."
—Publishers Weekly

"Nancy Jensen’s story is realistic and exposes the shocking extent of German American internment during the Second War. The story is reported as if the author lived through the immeasurable tragedy."
—Arthur D. Jacobs, Major, USAF Retired. Author of The Prison Called Hohenasperg: An American Boy Betrayed by His Government during World War II and founder of FOITIMES.COM

From the Publisher

2020-01-27
A blameless family of first-generation German immigrants, running a restaurant in small-town Indiana, learns harsh lessons in nationalism after World War II categorizes them as alien enemies.

Good people suffer terrible injustices when war reasserts tribal loyalties. That’s the message of Jensen’s (The Sisters, 2011, etc.) black-and-white depiction of the treatment of German Americans during the Second World War, a story similar to but less well known than the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during that conflict. The Aust family, with roots in Koblenz, finds itself suddenly the subject of rough FBI attention after Pearl Harbor forces the U.S. into war. First Nina Aust is arrested and interrogated; then, when she is freed, she discovers her husband, Otto, and sons, Kurt and Gerhard, have been incarcerated too. Meanwhile the family business has been stripped and vandalized, both by the authorities and the previously friendly, now antagonistic townspeople. Otto and Kurt find themselves imprisoned behind the wire fences of a miserable camp in North Dakota that also houses a contingent of Japanese detainees; Gerhard is sent to a sodden, health-threatening camp in Tennessee. Improvement of a kind comes when Nina agrees to voluntary imprisonment in a “family camp,” which at least reunites the four Austs in a scorching, barren corner of Texas called Crystal City. The pitiless conditions of this new prison, threats of deportation, and violent intimidation from Nazi factions render life even more testing. The Austs struggle to remain optimistic about a new start once hostilities are over, unaware of another avalanche of catastrophe just ahead. Jensen’s plain tale does justice to the brutal treatment suffered by Germans and other immigrants from hostile countries, but the novel delivers less a vibrant narrative, more a social and political horror story acted out by simple, stiff characters.

A sad, and sadly still relevant, history lesson in fictional form.

Kirkus Reviews