Carol Roh Spaulding's latest novel, Helen Button, winner of the Eludia Award, is a gripping dual-narrative tale that reimagines Hélène Bouton—a character taken from from Gertrude Stein's book Paris France– and follows Hélène from her childhood in rural France during the lead-up to World War II and the Nazi occupation, all the way to Paris in 2005. The situations Hélène faces raise probing issues of complicity, memory, and moral choices that must be made amid rising authoritarianism. Spaulding, a Drake University professor and Flannery O'Connor Award winner, offers thought-provoking insight for our times.