Book Review: Sarah's Key

'Sarah's Key'
Author: Tatiana de Rosnay


Format: Paperback
Published: St. Martin's Griffin; Sept., 2008
Pages: 320
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: A
Source: Personal copy


Synopsis: De Rosnay's U.S. debut fictionalizes the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of Jewish families were arrested, held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver outside the city, then transported to Auschwitz. Forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond, American by birth, moved to Paris when she was 20 and is married to the arrogant, unfaithful Bertrand Tézac, with whom she has an 11-year-old daughter. Julia writes for an American magazine and her editor assigns her to cover the 60th anniversary of the Vél' d'Hiv' roundups. Julia soon learns that the apartment she and Bertrand plan to move into was acquired by Bertrand's family when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed and deported 60 years before. She resolves to find out what happened to the former occupants: Wladyslaw and Rywka Starzynski, parents of 10-year-old Sarah and four-year-old Michel. The more Julia discovers—especially about Sarah, the only member of the Starzynski family to survive—the more she uncovers about Bertrand's family, about France and, finally, herself. Already translated into 15 languages, the novel is De Rosnay's 10th (but her first written in English, her first language). 


My Take: I've had this book on my shelf for more than a year, wanting to read it but having many other books and commitments getting in the way. Then, finally, my book club picked it on their own volition and I was thrilled. Now I had no excuse but to read this book. I had heard many good things about this book and I love a book that will allow me the chance to learn something new about WWII. I don't know what it is about books set during that time frame but it seems as though, lately, every book I read, I wonder if I could ever learn about everything that went on during that time.


Sarah's Key is set during two time periods: the past and the present. In the past, we have Sarah. She is a little girl who is living in Paris during WWII. Her family is Jewish. Her parents are Polish and they are trying to protect her and her little brother from what is happening from the world around them, so while she knows things are changing she is unaware of everything that is happening. One night, they get a knock on their door. Her father is in hiding and her mother answers it. Sarah locks her little brother up in their secret hiding place and she and her mother and rounded up. Soon her father is discovered and the three of them become a part of the massive Parisian police round up that is the Vel d'Hiv. If you have never heard of this, you are not alone. The French police, outside of the commands of the Germans, rounded up 80,000 Jewish men, women and children and ordered them to work camps, most of them never to return. The book brings this to life.


While it is at times difficult to read because it is a part of the past that is horrifyingly sad, it is also a part of the past that needs to be remembered. Since I didn't know about it, I am glad I read it. If many people shy away from books set during this time period because they find them too difficult to read you may actually find this book works for you because while one chapter is about Sarah and WWII, every alternating chapter is about Julia in modern day Paris trying to rediscover the mystery of the past. Some people may find this breaks up the momentum of the story. I actually appreciated it. It tempered the story for me. I liked Julia and found her a great foil for the Sarah of the past. While she is trying to right the wrongs that she may have had nothing to do with, she is trying to do something, and help a family repair itself. It lends the story some more mystery and gives it a modern setting and breaks some of the tension that can overwhelm these stories sometimes.


I don't want to give too much away so I won't go into many more of the actual details of the story; suffice it to say that I loved learning about an aspect of history that I previously new nothing about. The only aspect of the story that I kept waiting for and never occurred was some sort of epilogue that may have gone back and told some of the missing pieces from Sarah's point of view as an adult. If you've read this story you'll know what I am talking about. Do you agree?


Cover Lust: While it is beautiful, upon reading the story it doesn't really fit it so, of course that bothers me because this never actually happens.