The Lost Bookshop

Woods weaves historical references into the fictional events of her novel. For instance, Opaline lives in the 1920s and encounters several major historical figures of the time. She works at Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore in Paris owned by Sylvia Beach. Beach was an American-born expatriate, one of the major supporters of a group of artists and intellectuals in Paris called The Lost Generation. She published James Joyce’s novel Ulysses and supported Ernest Hemingway throughout his career. The Lost Generation (later the name of the generation after World War I) consisted largely of American and British expatriates in Paris, such as Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night), who originated the Modernist literary movement.

Opaline’s experience in a psychiatric hospital is another important historical reference. The Connacht District Lunatic Asylum was a real hospital, now called St. Brigid’s Hospital, and was one of many such places throughout Ireland. Initially built to care for “curable lunatics,” they became places of ill treatment where those with genuine mental illnesses, criminals, and those committed without cause were mixed together in dangerous environments (“‘Tales From the Big House’ The Connacht District Lunatic Asylum in the Late Nineteenth Century.” History Ireland). Many of these establishments were run by religious organizations, allowed people to be “committed” against their will and without just cause, and often kept people for decades without proper care or opportunities for release. Diagnoses such as “hysteria” and other illnesses were used to justify the forced control of outspoken or unconventional women. Some psychiatric hospitals behaved like Magdalene Laundries, Catholic-run institutions where unmarried pregnant women were placed against their will and indentured while their babies were taken away for adoption (Ostberg, Rene. “Magdalen Laundry.” Britannica).

In addition, the novel references a prisoner of war (POW) camp in Ireland during World War II. Ireland remained neutral during the war, so their laws required only that German prisoners not be allowed to return to the war. Therefore, the Irish POW camp, Curragh, had a relatively relaxed system. POWs were allowed to drink, read newspapers, and go to movies and dances. Eighteen prisoners were allowed to attend courses at the University in Dublin. Many prisoners developed friendships with local townsfolk, and several even married and remained in Ireland after the war (“German Internees at the Curragh Camp.” History Ireland).