My French Whore & The Woman Who Wouldn't / by Gene Wilder

Wilder is known to most people as a film actor and director in comedies like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles and The Producers. Having kept a low profile in the entertainment industry since the late eighties, he's recently he's taken up the craft of fiction, having published two short historical novels--My French Whore (2007) & The Woman Who Wouldn't (2008)--which resonate his own comedic yet endearing charm.

My French Whore
It's 1918 in Milwaukee and young Paul Peachy is a lowly railroad worker and struggling actor whose marriage, which has always been a little shaky, is seemingly on its last leg. Nearing his 30th birthday and desperate for something other than the old routine, Paul enlists as an infantryman in the US Army during WWI only to find how miniscule his understanding of the world really is, his shock at the horrors of the trenches like nothing he could've ever conceived of. There is one thing in Paul's favor though: he speaks fluent German. This talent suddenly lands him in an interrogation room with a German spy named Harry Stroller who Paul then impersonates after going AWOL once he's been sent back to the front lines. Received by the Germans as a hero, Paul as Harry is given the royal treatment, benefits which include his own personal French prostitute Annie Breton. Gradually, he and Annie get to know each other outside of just sex, finding they have an improbable connection through their shared trials until Paul finds himself suddenly jerked back to reality, back to the war and ultimately back home. (FIC WILDER)

The Woman Who Wouldn't At the turn of the last century, American concert violinist Jeremy Spencer Webb is a successful musician until he goes crazy during a concert, erupting out of his seat, pouring water down a tuba and wreaking havoc in the horn section. At the advice of his sympathetic orchestra director, he travels to Germany where he resides at a spa for recovery and psychiatric evaluation. There, under the care of Dr. Karl Gross, a friend of a friend, Jeremy meets his literary hero Russian author Anton Chekhov with whom he discusses some of his deepest convictions. Jeremy is also introduced to a beautiful, young Belgian woman named Clara Mulpas. As his stay at the spa lengthens, Jeremy grows closer to Clara who, as it turns out, is battling terminal illness. Ultimately the two become inseparable and Jeremy learns about a form of love he'd never known previously (his first wife a bullying terror of a woman who'd left him some years ago). But with Clara's time running out, how will Jeremy come to grips with losing the joy he'd just come to know. (FIC WILDER)