The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite by Beatrice Colin

Lilly Nelly Aphrodite’s parents, a pretty young actress and her Bavarian lover loose their lives in a jealous shooting incident and Lilly ends up in an orphanage in Berlin run by Sister August. Lilly and her best friend Hanne climb the wall each night and tour the town selling the roses from an altruistic but useless gift of a garden from an orphanage supporter.

As the first world war breaks out and the orphanage is disbanded Lilly finds a job as a maid and Hanne works in the tingle-tangle night clubs. Lilly falls in love with Stefan and becomes a war bride, setting up home with his sister Eva after Stefan goes to war. When they receive a telegram saying that Stefan is missing in action Eva throws Lilly out of the house in a jealous rage.

Lilly, egged on by Hanne attends a casting for a film, where her beauty catapults her into stardom and she is soon the most recognised actress of Berlin cinema. She falls in love with Ilya a Russian film director which in Germany’s climate of war and politics could cost everything Lilly has worked for.

The novel describes the atmosphere of suffering in Berlin in a sparse but harrowing manner, Beatrice Colin takes the reader through the changes of politics and policies as the first world war ends then the second one begins; saying that the story was inspired by her great aunt. Colin’s winds real people and events with fictionalised characters and storylines. The reader will learn a lot about German cinema, the clubs and the debauched lifestyle of Berliners during these terrible years but it doesn’t get in the way of the superb story of Lilly and Hanne.

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Published by John Murray Publishers
ISBN 978 1 84854 031 6 Price around £7.99
Reviewed by Dianne Blashill

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