All the Clouds — Michael Barnes Selvin

This novel is based on first-hand accounts of life during WW2 in southern France. The genesis and principal events of the novel were recounted some seventy years after the fact by a close friend: architect, scholar, father, government official, musician. When the occupation began, he joined the Résistance, helping people escape France. As the war continued, he became dangerously caught up in resistance, transporting charcoal from Spain. In March 1943, the Gestapo arrested him following an all-night jam session with Django Reinhardt and Georges Ulmer (neither arrested). The Americans liberated him from Buchenwald in April 1945. As a recipient of the Légion d'Honneur, among numerous other decorations, his story lies at the heart of this novel. He spent hours recounting his life during the war, literally with great pain. Although making this exception, his war-time experience never left his mind a single day of his long life.