Transgender people have been part of every major civilization and social movement across time on this planet, yet so little of the effect of world events on this community gets told. Thankfully, Milo Todd is doing something about it. His debut novel, THE LILAC PEOPLE, looks at the plight of trans individuals during and after World War II, a period when the LGBTQ+ Holocaust survivors experienced both the hope of a better life and the fear of continued oppression, even in a free world.

In 1932 Berlin, a trans man named Bertie and his pals spend their nights reveling at the Eldorado Club, the city’s queer gathering place of choice. Bertie is employed by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, with plans to uphold queer rights in Germany and the rest of the world. At the dawn of the Nazi regime, the Institute is raided. Soon the Eldorado becomes a target and is shut down, leaving queer people vulnerable to be rounded up by the government.

"Milo Todd is deft in his handling of difficult historical details and the reality with which he imbues Bertie’s life. His writing is easy to read yet packs an emotional punch at every turn."

Bertie and his girlfriend, Sofie, leave town and take on the identities of an elderly couple for more than a decade, living in isolation throughout WWII: “They had ridden out the length of the War in Ulm on a little farm that was not theirs, less than two morgen large, and in an arguably undesirable spot. They were in the hilly part, more than half of their ground useful only for heartier crops, and a quarter of it ended in a forest of five-meter conifers that ate both space and sunlight.” Their house in the Black Forest has protected them all this time.

When the war is over, the Allied forces continue to round up queer prisoners while liberating the rest of the country. Bertie and Sofie find a young trans man, Karl, on the property, still dressed in his death camp uniform: “Bertie had felt a renewed dread all day, ever since Karl said that he had come from Dachau.” The couple takes him in, escaping to the United States under the noses of the homophobic Allied forces.

Bertie faces so many challenges on his own --- the guilt of surviving and the specifics of his disappearance, the way he wants the world to operate versus how the aftermath of the war really works. He, Sofie and Karl are trying to create their own hope, catching a boat to the US in order to live the best possible life. Will it work? No good deed goes unpunished, and Bertie’s experiences are hampered and colored by all the positive and negative marks being left on the world by the new world order.

Milo Todd is deft in his handling of difficult historical details and the reality with which he imbues Bertie’s life. His writing is easy to read yet packs an emotional punch at every turn. Queer communities have always had to maneuver a distinct level of pain and intolerance in order to get what others were given. Todd doesn’t sit heavily on the injustices; he builds a story that truly engages and teaches simultaneously. Bertie’s adventures are interwoven with hard-hitting historical facts that need to be in the froth of any discussion of the war and the post-war social constructs and movements.

Todd’s moving, fascinating and devastating book feels like the kind of work that has been brewing in him, and the world around him, for ages. Brave and poignant, THE LILAC PEOPLE reminds us that there are always people who need protection and support, no matter what the cost when it comes to social, political or historical capital. It will give all who pick it up a strong, resonant “yes” that a world where we care about each other is much stronger than one where we kill each other.