Aimee and Jaguar by Erica Fischer
Aimee and Jaguar by Erica Fischer
Loaned to me by the ever lovely Di, I eagerly began reading the true story of Lilly “Aimee” Wust and Felice “Jaguar” Schragenheim, lesbian lovers living in Nazi era Germany. After reading for two days, I put it down and read an entirely different book. Then I went back to work on Aimee and Jaguar, intent on reaching the end of this important piece of GLBT literature. Unfortunately, because I had to take a break from this impossibly convoluted storyline every few days in order to finally finish, this book took me nearly two weeks to read and it felt like finishing a marathon.
Maybe it’s because I’m not a romantic.
Listen, kids, this book has the framework for a fiery explosion of a tale — Nazi Germany, an underground Jew in love with the ex-wife of a Nazi, concentration camps, lesbian romance in a time when homosexuals were being persecuted even more than usual — but the author merely buries the story with endless details and repetition.
In her epilogue, Ms. Fischer admits that listening to Lilly, the surviving half of the couple, describe her life and relationship to Felice was tiring. Many of her complaints about Lilly’s account of her life were the same I had about Ms. Fischer’s retelling. Lilly started tangential stories in which Erica was uninterested — check. Portions of her story sounded mechanical and rehearsed — check. Names, dates and tiny unimportant details are rattled off with confusing speed — check. However boring Lilly may have been (and from the looks of it, very) it’s the author’s job to reshape the story into something more interesting for the reader. I don’t feel that was done.
These issues aside, there are sections of the book that are riveting. Erica Fischer does break out some surprisingly intuitive writing in the epilogue. Aimee and Jaguar is a story worth knowing, if merely for the historical aspect. However, on a scale from “Eh” to “FANFUCKINGTASTIC!” it gets a “Boooooring!” Only read it if you’ve got a knack for keeping the seven nicknames for every character straight or if you can’t find the movie.
