Rapunzel 
 I thought of various titles for this review as I was reading, but the ending--a surprisingly good ending--convinced me; it is best to read it as a kind of fairy tale. A Grimm fairy tale, admittedly, with a lot of deprivation and terror to get through before reaching the end. But you also have to be able to suspend the need for realism from time to time. 
 The book called to me in the store because of its delightful cover, its elegant typesetting and deckle-edged binding, and the endorsement from Cathy Marie Buchanan above the title: "Graciously written and capriciously imagined." I read one chapter in the store, and found the writing indeed gracious. Dated "Highgate, London, November 1985," it is the first-person account of a teenage girl, Peggy, who has clearly returned home after a long absence. Finding an old photograph takes her back to when the family was intact. Her mother, Ute, is a German-born concert pianist. Her rather younger father, James, is a Survivalist, meeting weekly with like-minded friends (this is Highgate, after all), laying in emergency supplies in a radiation-proofed basement, and talking about ultimate bolt-holes in the country. 
 One day, while Ute is away on a concert tour, James whisks Peggy away to a mountainous region of Europe (it later turns out to be Bavaria), and treks with her through forests and over torrents, finally coming to what they always refer to as "Die Hutte": an isolated cabin that is supposed to have been fitted out with all they need for survival. In fact, however, it is almost in ruins, but by a combination of skill, determination, and luck, they manage to patch it up and survive. He tells her that Ute is dead, and the whole world has been destroyed except their mountain fastness; they have only each other to rely on. He gives her a new name, Punzel. Now after nine years away, Peggy is home again, emaciated and traumatized. All signs of her father have been removed from the house, and we do not at first know what happened to him. As the book continues, with roughly two chapters in the forest for each one back in London, we gradually work out the story, but the details will not all fall into place until the very end. 
 So back to that endorsement: "Graciously written and capriciously imagined." I had no problem with the gracious writing, which continued throughout, but the capricious imagination began to bother me, I think because I was expecting something more literal. Small details at first. James is supposed to have met Ute while substituting for her page turner at a concert, but professional pianists do not use music for solo recitals. Later in the hut, James builds a piano keyboard for Ute, consisting of nothing but weighted wooden levers, and on this she "learns" to play one of the most difficult pieces in the repertoire, Liszt's "La Campanella," singing the notes which of course do not sound. It is also very difficult to imagine that there is any part of Europe where two people living in a hut could have gone undiscovered for nine years. Though there are hints quite early on that these two Robinson Crusoes may not be alone. The thought of a Man Friday and a pubescent girl is where the story first gets a little predictable. And then, in the shivery ending, not predictable at all.