Book Blurb:
After. Santa Cruz, California, 1953. Jean-Luc and Charlotte Beauchamps have left their war-torn memories of Paris behind to live a quiet life in America with their son, Sam. They have a house in the suburbs, they’ve learned to speak English, and they have regular get-togethers with their outgoing American neighbors. Every minute in California erases a minute of their lives before — before the Germans invaded their French homeland and incited years of violence, hunger, and fear. But their taste of the American Dream shatters when officers from the U.N. Commission on War Crimes pull-up outside their home and bring Jean-Luc in for questioning. Before. Paris, France, 1944. Germany has occupied France for four years. Jean-Luc works at the railway station at Bobigny, where thousands of Jews travel each day to be “resettled” in Germany. But Jean-Luc and other railway employees can’t ignore the rumors or what they see on the tracks: too many people are packed into the cars, and bodies are sometimes left to be disposed of after a train departs. Jean-Luc’s unease turns into full-blown panic when a young woman with bright green eyes bursts from the train one day alongside hundreds of screaming, terrified passengers, and pushes a warm, squirming bundle into his arms.
My Review: 4.5 stars
While Paris Slept was a compelling and thought-provoking novel that is sure to be a “best of” pick for historical fiction. Although there are a plethora of books surrounding WWII, especially focusing on the horrors of the Holocaust, there’s always room for more. I often hear that people get “burned out” by these stories and I get the sentiment; however, after six-million people perished and survivors that lived through hell, I feel I owe it to them to read as much as I can.
Paris seems to be trending (for lack of a better word) and many, many books are set there or in the book’s title. This book takes place in both Santa Cruz, California and Nazi occupied France. The places intersect as two different couples are parents to the same young boy. What one couple does to save an infant from a certain death at the camps has a dramatic and live-changing effect on the birth parents and the parents who raise him. This book had me asking myself how I would deal with their situations and my heart broke for both couples.
The story is filled with themes of sacrifice, respect, patience, compromise, love, religion and family. This is a standout debut and one that I highly recommend.
Quotes I liked:
There’s more to a book than just the words on the page.”
“A lie that is half the truth is the best lie.”
“I wonder what the word “home” really means. Is it a place? Is it a language? Or is it wherever your family are? I suppose it’s a mixture of these things.”
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