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Almost a Great Escape: A Found Story
Winner of the W.O. Mitchell Award, the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction, and the Alberta Readers' Choice Award
Following his mother's death in 2004, Tyler Trafford discovers an album of old letters and creased photographs that reveal a mother he never knew, a man he's never heard of, and a love affair doomed by class and circumstance. The letters are from Jens M?ller, a Norwegian pilot who trained in Canada during the early days of World War II, one of only three prisoners who would make it home after The Great Escape.
In Almost a Great Escape, Trafford takes us on a journey of emotional discovery and dramatic disclosure as he reconstructs his mother's life, from her youth as a wealthy Montreal debutante to her final days as a broken but unbent casualty of a loveless marriage. His search for answers takes him across Canada and then across the ocean to Norway, hoping to learn more about the mystery of this secret relationship. Written with a fluidity fueled by heart-wrenching honesty, Trafford's unconventional memoir confirms that while you can survive your past, you can never escape from it.
Almost a Great Escape includes photographs as well as excerpts and reproductions of telegrams and letters Jens sent from England and Stalag Luft III.
Following his mother's death in 2004, Tyler Trafford discovers an album of old letters and creased photographs that reveal a mother he never knew, a man he's never heard of, and a love affair doomed by class and circumstance. The letters are from Jens M?ller, a Norwegian pilot who trained in Canada during the early days of World War II, one of only three prisoners who would make it home after The Great Escape.
In Almost a Great Escape, Trafford takes us on a journey of emotional discovery and dramatic disclosure as he reconstructs his mother's life, from her youth as a wealthy Montreal debutante to her final days as a broken but unbent casualty of a loveless marriage. His search for answers takes him across Canada and then across the ocean to Norway, hoping to learn more about the mystery of this secret relationship. Written with a fluidity fueled by heart-wrenching honesty, Trafford's unconventional memoir confirms that while you can survive your past, you can never escape from it.
Almost a Great Escape includes photographs as well as excerpts and reproductions of telegrams and letters Jens sent from England and Stalag Luft III.
272 pages, Paperback
First published March 12, 2013
2 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Tyler Trafford
16 books5 followersI’m an erratic writer.
My Start in Journalism.
I wrote for newspapers in the 1970's and early 80's as a reporter, editor and columnist in Calgary, Australia and Florida. Discontented, I took up more entertaining (better paying) careers.
I Try Creativity.
In 1993, I began writing biographies and histories before trying a creative, original species: novels. My first work of fiction, The Story of Blue Eye was shortlisted for the 2005 Grant McEwan Authors Award.
As a Loner.
I took a break from creativity until 2010 when I began Almost A Great Escape which swept all three awards for which it was nominated at the Alberta Writers’ Guild Awards in 2014. Then I took another break.
Shallow Rapids.
I began this small-town series about Analiese Drucker, Journeyman Welder in 2020. Three books later, she still has me laughing as she discovers science accidently revealed inside love.
“Didn't know you were a closet 22 year old girl. But it works,” an agent fri friend tells me. Not true, but I like writing first person stories and, consequently, Analiese has become a voice in my head ... and a friend.
I live on the Oldman River near Pincher Creek, Alberta, where my wite, Judy, ride and I our horses in the Rockies and the Porcupine Hills.
My Start in Journalism.
I wrote for newspapers in the 1970's and early 80's as a reporter, editor and columnist in Calgary, Australia and Florida. Discontented, I took up more entertaining (better paying) careers.
I Try Creativity.
In 1993, I began writing biographies and histories before trying a creative, original species: novels. My first work of fiction, The Story of Blue Eye was shortlisted for the 2005 Grant McEwan Authors Award.
As a Loner.
I took a break from creativity until 2010 when I began Almost A Great Escape which swept all three awards for which it was nominated at the Alberta Writers’ Guild Awards in 2014. Then I took another break.
Shallow Rapids.
I began this small-town series about Analiese Drucker, Journeyman Welder in 2020. Three books later, she still has me laughing as she discovers science accidently revealed inside love.
“Didn't know you were a closet 22 year old girl. But it works,” an agent fri friend tells me. Not true, but I like writing first person stories and, consequently, Analiese has become a voice in my head ... and a friend.
I live on the Oldman River near Pincher Creek, Alberta, where my wite, Judy, ride and I our horses in the Rockies and the Porcupine Hills.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 23 reviews
April 23, 2013
It would have been a crime if this book had never been written, if this story was never shared. I heard this author speak about his book and he actually had the whole audience spellbound with his story. I bought the book right away and started reading because I just had to see how it all turned out. I suspected, however, that it may not have enough substance to live up to the expectation. Was there enough to fill a book or would there be a lot of filler material?
With that prejudice in mind, the first 50 pages seemed to bear it out. I had trouble with the writing style and some of the story-line. But still I had to keep going; the story was just too intriguing to stop. 24 hours later, I am rating it with 4 well-earned stars.
It was an experience that kept me interested all the way through. It actually was more than I expected, a surprise gem.
If I have withheld the fifth star it is because of his writing style. It took me at least 200 pages, most of the book, to get remotely used to it without snagging along in his non-hyphenated adjectives. By the end, though, it was almost endearing, as personal and unique as the author himself. I think he explains it in a way, without really explaining it.
I quite loved this book. It is wonderful and rich. Beautifully done.
With that prejudice in mind, the first 50 pages seemed to bear it out. I had trouble with the writing style and some of the story-line. But still I had to keep going; the story was just too intriguing to stop. 24 hours later, I am rating it with 4 well-earned stars.
It was an experience that kept me interested all the way through. It actually was more than I expected, a surprise gem.
If I have withheld the fifth star it is because of his writing style. It took me at least 200 pages, most of the book, to get remotely used to it without snagging along in his non-hyphenated adjectives. By the end, though, it was almost endearing, as personal and unique as the author himself. I think he explains it in a way, without really explaining it.
I quite loved this book. It is wonderful and rich. Beautifully done.
May 11, 2013
Who knows what you can find out about your loved ones if you just look a little further than what has been shown to you while they were alive. This is the story of a son's search for his mother's true love after being left a box of correspondence between them during WW11. An amazing story, told in a quirky prose yet so heartbreaking and sincere. Again, this story touched a nerve with me due to my own mother's story and how one decision can change the course of your life. I truly admire the author's perseverance and his quest for the truth and for answers. His search confirmed the love his mother had for him and for teaching him to always live your own life...don't live the life that is expected of you but the life that you expect to live for yourself! This story left me breathless!
February 11, 2021
When his mother died, the author received a box filled with old letters and photographs that lead him on a journey of discovery into her past. The letters, it turns out, came from a man she once loved: Jens Müller, a Norwegian fighter pilot who trained in Canada during WWII, was later shot down while flying combat missions from England, and became one of only three men to make it home after the Great Escape from German POW camp Stalag Luft III.
While I was interested in both the pilot's story and the author's slow unravelling of the secrets of his mother's past, I found the language too flowery and didn't care much for the fragmented structure of the book. Also: What a deeply unpleasant family!
While I was interested in both the pilot's story and the author's slow unravelling of the secrets of his mother's past, I found the language too flowery and didn't care much for the fragmented structure of the book. Also: What a deeply unpleasant family!
August 27, 2014
I wish I'd liked this book better. The problem was that the whole damned family was so unlikeable. The author, Tyler Trafford loved his mother (who seemed to be a totally erratic and incompetent mother) but despised the rest of his family. I couldn't help but think that Jens Muller made more than one "Great Escape", once when he escaped the German POW camp and once when Tyler's mother,chose another man to marry
March 25, 2013
Last week it was rated #1 in Calgary in Nonfiction. I laughed, cried, muttered, exclaimed etc. Randy and I both read it in less than 24 hours word for word. Enough said.
April 21, 2015
I'm afraid that it may take a poet to do this book justice. I remember checking at points to see if this was a novel. I had wondered how he could know some of these things as they seemed so intimate. I got to understand by the time I finished the book. This book doesn't actually tell you all that much about the Great Escape. However, you get to know a couple of men and a few women in an interesting way. I grew to love and admire them all through the course of the book. I found I was quite moved, but I can't see to get out a decent coherent description of all I read. It feels much too intimate and delicate to try and convey the story in any summary I might try and make. The writing seemed ordinary, even simple, yet I was profoundly impacted by the book. This is a surprising find. Perhaps my Canadian heritage and my love of the Great Escape helped warm me to the book. What I can say is that I gobbled up the book with surprising speed.
Read
June 8, 2019I was enthralled by this book. I found myself identifying deeply with Trafford's mother, and the heartbreaks she experienced in life. Found myself weeping in a passage or two. Not many books tug on the heart the way this one did for me. It is full of emotion, particularly compassion and great love for a good parent, and anger at one who is not so good.
Why did I identify so strongly with Alice, and with Tyler? It helped that Alice was buried in the same cemetery as my parents, for some of the same reasons. That the author was born in the same hospital I was, and that the places he grew up in were in my own stomping grounds as a kid... lots of nostalgia in this book for a Calgary-raised kid born in the 1950s or 60s.
I also recommend this book for anyone who cares about the status of women in our society, and who appreciates or wants to see evidence of the vast changes in social expectations of women that have occurred in the last half-to full century. This story is a case study of why women's liberation occurred and why it is still needed, lest we return to what was.
Why did I identify so strongly with Alice, and with Tyler? It helped that Alice was buried in the same cemetery as my parents, for some of the same reasons. That the author was born in the same hospital I was, and that the places he grew up in were in my own stomping grounds as a kid... lots of nostalgia in this book for a Calgary-raised kid born in the 1950s or 60s.
I also recommend this book for anyone who cares about the status of women in our society, and who appreciates or wants to see evidence of the vast changes in social expectations of women that have occurred in the last half-to full century. This story is a case study of why women's liberation occurred and why it is still needed, lest we return to what was.
June 29, 2020
Interesting story about one of the survivors of "The Great Escape" A member of the Norwegian Air Force - while training in Canada - falls in love with a Canadian girl. The son (A Calgarian) finds this history which was previously unknown to his family and documents it, as well as goes to Norway to meet the family of Jens. One of the stories behind the movie.
January 11, 2014
An interesting memoir of the author's mother, Alice Tyler, and the secret war time love affair he discovered 60 years later after her death (through letters and an album she created and saved). Her love, Jens Muller, was one of the only 3 men/POW's who safely escaped and made it home from "the great escape" from Stalag III (brought to life in the Steve McQueen movie of that name). Just as interesting was the secondary story of the author's childhood and adventurous upbringing in Calgary/Springbank/Canmore, Alberta then boarding school at age 13 (never to return to live with his family) and the subsequent deterioration of his mother into alcoholism and health issues. He realized that despite his feelings of rejection, she had orchestrated his great escape. All the while, this story is told in a quirky and engaging style using strings of thoughts/descriptors that really bring alive Alice and their life together. Our book club met the author this week and had him join us for our discussion---very interesting and illuminating!
April 3, 2013
This one pulled me right in.
It is so many things - a book about secrets, love, lost love, war, family, dysfunction - but above all a wonderful story of discovery. In discovering a past his mother never spoke of, Trafford finds out about himself. We look at our own hands or eyes and see how similar they are to those of the people in our family. But what about how we feel, think and respond to the world around us? In opening a cardboard soup box of secrets Trafford discovers how the pieces of himself fit together. I have heard him say in an interview that the book wrote itself and in reading this book I can believe he is being absolutely sincere. Once he found his mother's secrets he had no choice but to let the story come through him. I was enthralled, I laughed aloud, I cried and I rejoiced.
One of the best I have ever read.
Check out the mazing "trailer" for the book, what a movie it would make.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ605Y...
It is so many things - a book about secrets, love, lost love, war, family, dysfunction - but above all a wonderful story of discovery. In discovering a past his mother never spoke of, Trafford finds out about himself. We look at our own hands or eyes and see how similar they are to those of the people in our family. But what about how we feel, think and respond to the world around us? In opening a cardboard soup box of secrets Trafford discovers how the pieces of himself fit together. I have heard him say in an interview that the book wrote itself and in reading this book I can believe he is being absolutely sincere. Once he found his mother's secrets he had no choice but to let the story come through him. I was enthralled, I laughed aloud, I cried and I rejoiced.
One of the best I have ever read.
Check out the mazing "trailer" for the book, what a movie it would make.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ605Y...
September 9, 2014
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was an interesting and intimate look at a family haunted by the past and also the ambitions of its members. It is a brave look at the often difficult relationships between the generations of a family. However, what makes this story unique is the relationship of a Canadian woman to the second world war and one of the most famous events of that war - the Great Escape.
This is a work of great poignancy, not a happy story with a happy ending, but a real one. It reminds me of Irish music that makes you cry as it causes you to appreciate the beauty in our humanity. A story that lifts you out of the everyday and helps you to realise that every family has its depth of heartache as well as courage.
This is a work of great poignancy, not a happy story with a happy ending, but a real one. It reminds me of Irish music that makes you cry as it causes you to appreciate the beauty in our humanity. A story that lifts you out of the everyday and helps you to realise that every family has its depth of heartache as well as courage.
May 25, 2015
A memoir? A book of wishful thinking? An apology? I just don't know what this book is actually trying to be...as a result I found it insubstantial and unsatisfying. Interesting bits; yes. Cool tidbits about 1960s Calgary and area, 1940s Montreal and a very tenuous link to a famous WWII story turned into a fiction about a 17-year old girl's One Big Thing? Then a sour and sad and troubled marriage/family in which the author was and apparently still is a complete outsider? This book just made me feel sorry for Tyler. I certainly hope he feels better having written this book but I'm not convinced it needed to be shared with the world.
March 31, 2025
Fantastic story
What an interesting book, a blend of a biographical tale, a biography about the author’s mother and a stunning slice of WWII history involving one of the three survivors of the ‘great escape’.
I enjoy books that emerge from the mystery of a parent’s papers left behind after death, and this one did not disappoint. His mother was a writer, so the her musings on her craft were an amusing bonus.
If you have not read The Great Escape, or have only seen the movie, I highly recommend the Audible audiobook as a prelude to this; I listened to it just a few months before I stumbled on this book, and I liked that order.
What an interesting book, a blend of a biographical tale, a biography about the author’s mother and a stunning slice of WWII history involving one of the three survivors of the ‘great escape’.
I enjoy books that emerge from the mystery of a parent’s papers left behind after death, and this one did not disappoint. His mother was a writer, so the her musings on her craft were an amusing bonus.
If you have not read The Great Escape, or have only seen the movie, I highly recommend the Audible audiobook as a prelude to this; I listened to it just a few months before I stumbled on this book, and I liked that order.
August 9, 2016
When I started the book, the author's writing style and the way he laid the book out both distracted me, and irritated me a bit. But the story was incredibly poignant, with so many threads that could be contemplated, that I persevered and soon became accustomed to it. On second reading, I hardly noticed its eccentricities, but found it even richer than first time around. With the little he had to go on, I think Tyler did an amazing job of crafting a wonderful story. Love, lost love, mystery, adventure, family, tragedy, war, heroism ... what is missing?
November 11, 2014
Il romanzo sembra la sceneggiatura di un film, ma in realtà è una storia autobiografica affascinante ed emozionante come poche.
Il lettore vive un'emozione dopo l'altra rimanendo incollato al libro per sapere cosa succederà dopo, cosa scoprirà Tyler e soprattutto inebriandosi di quell'amore che trasuda dalle parole delle lettere dei protagonisti.
Continua a leggere su http://www.leggereacolori.com/letti-e...
Il lettore vive un'emozione dopo l'altra rimanendo incollato al libro per sapere cosa succederà dopo, cosa scoprirà Tyler e soprattutto inebriandosi di quell'amore che trasuda dalle parole delle lettere dei protagonisti.
Continua a leggere su http://www.leggereacolori.com/letti-e...
August 8, 2013
Very sorry to report, but I hated this book. I have been forcing myself to continue and am now giving up on page 69 of 114 in Consequences. I feel it is badly written -- so bad, I kept wondering where the hell I was all the time. I feel it's a shame that what could have been so interesting was instead a chore to continue reading.
August 31, 2024
I’m so glad Tyler Trafford wrote this book. I came across it when doing genealogy research of my family. It’s a sad story, but I am so grateful that this information is available now! I never would have known this incredible piece of history.
May 21, 2013
I had the good fortune to narrate this amazing story as an audiobook for Tantor Audio. It will draw you in, and you won't want to put it down.
August 16, 2014
Enjoyed the writing and the story.
Interesting how you think you know your family only to find out after they passed they had a whole other life.
Interesting how you think you know your family only to find out after they passed they had a whole other life.
November 28, 2014
I found the story very interesting, although sometimes difficult to read, due to the unique structure and style of the writing. The question I was left with was, "What if?"
February 15, 2015
I could not get through the the first 2 chapters
January 29, 2016
Sometimes a bit hard to follow, but a love story on many levels
Displaying 1 - 22 of 23 reviews