Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de RosnayRating: 4 out of 5 Kleenex Boxes
Book Source: St. Martin's Reading Group Gold
I look at the key and I long for you and the past.
For the innocent, easy days before the war.
I know now my scars will never heal.
Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay
The BackstoryIn the summer of 1942, the Vichy government of France rounded up over 12,000 Jewish Parisians and locked them in a local sports stadium called the Vélodrome d'Hiver. They were trapped for five days with only scraps of food, one working water tap and five restrooms. I'll pause here and let you consider that statement.
Twelve thousand men, women, and children.After five days of this hell on earth, the survivors were shipped off to camps where children under the age of fourteen were physically -
forcibly - wrenched from their parents, who were sent ahead to Auschwitz. 35 of these adults would survive.
The 3,500 children who were left behind ranged in age from fifteen months to thirteen years of age. They were left to fend for themselves in a local camp called Drancy and then, under the ruse of being reunited with their parents, were shipped to Auschwitz as well. Not one of these of these children survived.
3,500 young Parisian children....every single last one of them killed.
The SynopsisThis sordid, horrific moment in French history is the background for Tatiana de Rosnay's powerful novel,
Sarah's Key. It is the story of two women: Julia, a modern-day journalist and Sarah, a young girl separated from her family during the Vel' d'Hiv roundup. Chapters alternate between 1942 and modern times and as the story progresses, the two characters accelerate down paths that will intersect in a most unusual way.
The WarningI feel compelled to warn readers that this is not a book for the faint-of-heart. Have a Kleenex box nearby. If you are a parent, prepare to have your gut and heart wrenched out of you. Tatiana de Rosnay will transport you into a place in history so ugly that most people would rather forget. It is not comfortable. In fact, the repercussions of the roundup for young Sarah's family are so horrific, I wondered whether the author was a parent at all (she is).
The Literary CriticismThe format of alternating time periods and characters with chapters abruptly ends about midway through the story. I found this disappointing because there was so much more to Sarah's story that I wanted to hear from her perspective. I couldn't find a clear reason why the author chose to do this and it bothered me throughout the second half of the novel.
By the end of the novel, loose ends were tied up a bit too tritely. It felt a tad forced and quite honestly, the story wasn't served by it. If anything, this is what kept the novel from a five-star review from me.
The RecommendationRegardless of these small criticisms,
Sarah's Key is not to be missed. Do not (I repeat:
do not) shy away from this novel because you are uncomfortable with the subject matter. The true horror of the Holocaust only has meaning when it becomes real to you. Dry words droning out statistics in a history textbook can never illuminate the monstrosity of this event. It takes a talented author to transport you so vividly back in time, for as the Holocaust retreats farther and farther into history, we lose the immensity of the event. And if we lose that, it loses meaning.
Zakhor. Al Tichkah.
Remember. Never Forget.
Title: Sarah's Key
Author: Tatiana de Rosnay
293 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-37084
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Date: 2008Additional reviews of Sarah's Key:
A Mom's Book Blog
Booking Mama
The Boston Bibliophile
Devourer of Books
Bookfoolery and Babble
Books~Books~And Reviews
Read Like Me
Pudgy Penguin Perusals
Caribou's Mom
2 Many Books 2 Read
She's a Bibliophile
Rhapsody in Books
She is Too Fond of Books and an interview with the author here.
Also be sure to take a look at author Tatiana de Rosnay's
blog.
