“The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came into being because of a roast pig we had to keep secret from the German soldiers, so I feel a kinship to Mr. Lamb.”
The “Mr. Lamb” is a reference to British writer Charles Lamb, friend to Wordsworth. Lamb is also central to the narrative at hand by way of being the conduit through which Juliet comes into contact with the Guernsey Society. Adams is not being facetious with his claim, though it is cryptic and will remain so for another forty or so pages.
“I don't want to be considered a light-hearted journalist anymore. I do acknowledge that making readers laugh - or at least chuckle - during the war was no mean feat, but I don't want to do it anymore. I can't seem to dredge up any sense of proportion or balance these days, and God knows one can't write humour without them.”
This is the first letter in the book and is written from Juliet—successful writing humor columns under the name Izzy Bickerstaff—to her publisher, Sidney Stark. The starting point of the narrative, then, is a decision by a woman writing light non-fictional prose under a male pseudonym to step out from behind the persona and pursue a career writing serious non-fiction using her own name in a milieu dominated by males at a time when it was widely assumed that women were only capable of writing mystery novels and advice columns.
“It's odd, I suppose, to mourn someone you've never met. But I do.”
Juliet sets off on her task of leaving humor writing behind to pursue a more serious subject: the German occupation of Guernsey. Her research into the survivors continually results in stories about the leader of the Guernsey Society, Elizabeth McKenna. As she comes to know Elizabeth second-hand through the stories about her, Juliet comes to feel closer and closer to her despite never meeting her. Her observation about the strangeness of mourning a person one has never met also subtly points out how much the world changed just in the last half of the 20th century. Today, of course, it is quite common for people to mourn the death of someone they never actually met because they have gone through something of the same kind of experience. Elizabeth becomes to Juliet a kind of celebrity kept at a distance, but that one still feels they have come to know.
“There are only two respectable people in the Society - Eben Ramsey and Amelia Maugery. The other members: a rag-and-bone man, a lapsed Alienist who drinks, a stuttering swine-herd, a footman posing as a lord, and Isola Pribby, a practising witch, who, by her own admission, distils and sells potions. They collected a few others of their ilk along the way, and one can only imagine their 'literary evenings'. You must not write about these people and their books - God knows what they saw fit to read!”
Adelaide is a Guernsey islander, but not a member of the Literary Society. She is, in fact, a quite horrid human being who, upon learning that Juliet plans to write a book about the society and, furthermore, to further serve the interest of situating Elizabeth as a heroine in the fight against the German occupation, takes it upon herself to write letters casting aspersions upon all the members, but Eben and Amelia. She does so in the interest of—as she signs off one of those letters—"Christian Consternation and Concern.” Dawsey Adams sees the situation somewhat differently, writing to Juliet that in Adelaide’s particular denomination of Christianity, the biggest sin one can commit is “having fun.”
