Finished: The Illusion of Separateness (Van Booy). Book Club Book #3. A really good book, fast read, about the power of how random acts can unite people in ways in which they have no idea they're connected. The books starts in 2010 with the elderly Martin, who was born in France during WWII. He works at a retirement home in California now and on this particular day, the home is welcoming a new resident, the very elderly, Mr. Hugo. Mr. Hugo actually fought in WWII, and has had half of his head/face blown off. He survived the horrific injury, though, and went on to live a long life. As Mr. Hugo enters the reception party in his honor, he suddenly collapses and dies. :-( Martin is the only one to get to him and he comforts Mr. Hugo as he slips from this earth. The books jumps around in time and goes back to France to where Martin is about 7 years old and the only child of his parents who run a successful bakery. On this day, Martin's parents finally tell him that he was adopted. He was put into his mother's arms by a frantic young man during WWII, and in a scene that we find out more about later, the mother runs with the baby to safety, in through the back door of the bakery, where she meets and falls in love with Martin's father! Martin grows up to be a compassionate child, often taking spare bakery items to the homeless in the park. When Martin's mother is approached by a government official to be rewarded for being instrumental in the "resistance" movement during the war, she declines being put in the spotlight, and the small family, which now includes a sister for Martin, moves to California and opens a bakery there. Meanwhile, we also get the story of young American pilot, John Bray, who is spending one last evening with his young wife, Harriet, before going off to fight in WWII. He takes a picture of her on Coney Island, and carries it off with him to war. Flash forward to the 2000's again and young friends, Sebastian and Hayley find an old downed WWII airplane deep in the woods of Sebastian's father's farm. Within the cockpit, they find the picture of Harriet and wonder what happened to all the airplane occupants. Back to John Bray in WWII and we get his tale of being the only survivor after the plane crash, and how he makes his way through occupied France (for several months), and with the help of many strangers, finally makes it to safety. At one point, he comes upon a field of dead German soldiers and as he trips, he falls down upon a soldier that is moving. John shoves his pistol in the German's mouth and holds it there for the longest time, before realizing he just can't kill a human being in cold blood. When he removes the pistol, the frightened German soldier shares his food with him. After eating the meager rations, both John and the German soldier get up and go their separate ways. The German soldier is Mr. Hugo!!! In his elderly years, Mr. Hugo has finally remembered being a part of Hitler's youth, and part of the German army...but when he was shot in the face and head, he had no remembrance of that and wasn't dressed as any kind of soldier. Doctors just found a copy of a thick Victor Hugo paperback in his pocket, and not even thinking he'd survive his injury, they called him Victor Hugo. However, Mr. Hugo DID survive and bits and pieces of his memory came back to him...a life he hated with an abusive father who made him enlist in the German army AND who one night fed him rabbit stew for dinner, and then laughingly told Victor (or "A" as he was called in the flashback) to go and check on his beloved pet rabbit. Yes, the evil father had killed, cooked, and fed Mr. Hugo his pet rabbit. :-(  Anyway, back to WWII, after the incident in the field, where John Bray and Mr. Hugo went their separate ways in the French countryside, Mr. Hugo came upon a burning farm house with a dead woman laying outside. Rushing into the house to salvage what food might be there, Mr. Hugo finds a baby boy in a crib! He grabs some clothes, food, and extra men's clothes from the closet, and rushes out with the baby. Ditching his German uniform, Mr. Hugo decides he will start over with this orphan baby and be a good father to him. He also grabs one book on his way out the door so he can learn to read in French...the Victor Hugo paperback. Meanwhile, back in the 2000's, we meet Amelia who is 27 and has been blind all her life. She works at the New York Museum of Modern Art arranging exhibits and field trips for the seeing impaired. She still lives with her parents in the rich Hamptons. It turns out her grandfather is John Bray! Yes, John survived his WWII ordeal and made it home to his beloved young wife, Harriet, Amelia's grandmother, who has been deceased for a few years now. Amelia is putting together an exhibit at the MoMA about WWII and has been collecting pictures (which interns describe to her) and other memorabilia for the collection. She tells her grandfather about the exhibit in the last conversation she has with him before he suddenly passes away of old age. She tells him how she's going to call it the Illusion of Separateness, because, after all, as singular and lonely as some of the dramatic pictures seem, no one is really alone when they think they are....all these memories and events are so intertwined. On a side note...John Bray had been successful after the war creating a lighter weight material for war airplanes, and had made millions, most of which he'd given away. Amelia, who has been lonely all her life and just wanted someone to love her, finally does fall in love with Phillip. Anyway, in their last conversation, Amelia tells her grandfather about how she's going to include a picture in the exhibit sent to her by a couple in France, Sebastian and Hayley...a picture of a beautiful young woman on Coney Island that was found by the couple in a downed airplane. John Bray doesn't make the connection that the picture is the one of Harriet, but we the readers do. As a matter of fact, none of the principal characters ever really come to understand their deep-rooted connections, and how maybe altering just one simple action could have kept those connections from coming into being. So, back to Mr. Hugo....as he makes his way into a French town with the baby boy, he tries to avoid the German soldiers who are coming to occupy the town. In a freakish event, he comes upon a crowd that is gathered and having a good laugh at a man and his trick dog. As the crowd is laughing and being entertained, the German police come up to disperse the crowd and kick the dog aside, killing it on impact. The crowd gets angry. For some reason, the officers aim their guns at Mr. Hugo, so he shoves the baby into the arms of a nearby seventeen year old girl, Anne-Lise, to keep him from harm. Anne-Lise, though, recognizes the offending officer as the one who killed her own brother earlier in the year. She grabs a gun and shoots him twice in the chest! As the officers scramble to fire on the now running Anne-Lise, they hit Mr. Hugo instead and blow off half of his face/head. :-( Anne-Lise escapes in an alley and is the young woman who bursts into the bakery for safety. Yes, the baby is Martin! So, Mr. Hugo saves Martin as a baby, and Martin is there to comfort Mr. Hugo during his last moments on earth...neither knowing of their connection. After Mr. Hugo goes through the long recovery process, he spends several years in the hospital, he works as a janitor at a retirement home, and he even spends some homeless years in France...where a kind young son of a baker brings the homeless men extra pastries....once again...an unknown connection with Martin! In his 60's, Mr. Hugo is finally working consistently and living next door to a single mom with a 7 year old boy named Danny. Mr. Hugo and Danny become very close for the two years they live there, spending lots of time together. When Mr. Hugo realizes that Danny is having trouble reading in school, he painstakingly takes it upon himself to start at the very basics, teaching Danny first how to make each letter of the alphabet, then how to make them into words, etc. After a couple of years, Danny and his mother move away when she marries a Scottish man. It isn't until years later when a dying friend of Danny's encourages him to get back in touch with people that meant alot to him that Danny reaches out to find Mr. Hugo. Danny is now a movie director in Hollywood, and he feels great gratitude towards the old man who taught him to read. Mr. Hugo is very old when Danny finally finds him, writes him a heartfelt letter, and asks him to move near him in California. It is Danny who has arranged for Mr. Hugo to come to the nice retirement home. Sadly, as we know, Mr. Hugo doesn't really live any length of time there before dying, but at least he made that connection back with Danny who he adored. My only wish for the book was that somehow Mr. Hugo and Martin would also connect. Sigh. Anyway....a really good book! :-)