This book put me right back in occupied France during WWII. I told myself I wouldn’t go back there after reading Sarah’s Key, All the Light We Cannot See, and In Enemy Hands. And yet here I am. Again.
This was my parents’ war. Is that the draw? I knew their stories of lost loved ones and rationing. A recipe for butterless, sugarless, eggless cake. No silk stockings. Hemlines raised to use less fabric. My mom worked as a Rosie the Riveter. My dad joined the Amphibians and served in the South Pacific. But still, the war wasn’t here at home. Enemy soldiers weren’t living in our homes. History classes, television documentaries, and movies provided the rest of my knowledge. For the most part, it was the leaders’ stories I learned. And mostly it was the story of men.
What all the novels here do is tell the very personal stories of the women forced to cope with the circumstances and deprivations over which they had little control. Their very survival was an act of courage and determination.
In Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale are two estranged sisters, one of whom has survived to old age. She is telling the story for the first time. It is particularly a story of how two very different young women coped with the brutal Nazi occupation of their small village in France. There were few men left, because they’d all gone off to fight. When France surrendered (or reached an “agreement” with Germany) they were imprisoned elsewhere. One sister’s day-to-day interactions with Nazi officers forcefully billeted in her home are intimately and vividly contrasted with the other sister’s choice to join the resistance, leading downed pilots over the Pyrenees to safety.
“Men tell stories,” I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.”
Secrets and intrigue abound here as Hannah tells of the heroic and many times ignored or misinterpreted efforts of women to provide for and protect their loved ones, not to mention to fight against their own Vichy government and Germany. Recommend.
Lorie Smith Schaefer 
NICE review, Lorie.I am definitely going to read this on your recommendation alone.And thanks for the plug for IEH!!!!wilma
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Thanks, Wilma. I hope you like it. I was happy to mention your book because it fits well the others I mentioned, as well as Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy. Thanks for stopping by.
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I just finished The Nightingale, Lorie. Thank you for capturing my thoughts about it in your review. I had highlighted the quote you used. I found it very meaningful and thought it rang true.
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I’m glad you liked the book. Our friend Judy recommended it a while ago and I finally got around to reading it. My to-read list just goes on and on and on…
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I very much enjoyed this book too. In this same genre, I also enjoyed “Suite Francaise” by Irene Nemirovsky. What makes this book so special is that it is a first hand account. Nemirovsky, a Jew, died in Auschwitz. The book was discovered and published 64 years after her death.
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I’ll be on the lookout for that book, but not right away. These stories are so intense and moving. The cruelty that humans can and have committed against each other is simply too much. My brain and heart need a break. Thanks for stopping by.
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Beautiful review, but I think I’ll pass on this one…..I get so emotionally attached when I read books like this, that I actually get depressed after reading them….Took me a week to “de-process” from “The Band of Brothers”…..as much as I love reading about this time period, I find myself having to do it in “small dosages”……
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I agree with you about small doses. Seeing Sophie’s Choice years ago still haunts me. Luckily, my to-read list is quite eclectic.
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You and me BOTH, Lorie (re: Sophie’s Choice) I’m a light weight when it comes to that period of time…I love reading history, but can get so emotional when I read about WW1 and WW2……
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