Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Release Date: September 30, 2008
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Page Count: 320 pages
Source: Provided by SheKnows Book Club

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family’s apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France’s past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl’s ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d’Hiv’, to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah’s past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Review: This is a split narrative story. Short chapters vacillate between Julia, an American journalist living in modern France with her family, and that of Sarah a young Jewish girl caught in the horrors of the Jewish round-up in 1942 Paris. The challenge with this type of structure is to ensure that both stories are compelling and while different, should maintain a connection to propel the reader and the story. Unfortunately, for this reader, I found it challenging not to be biased towards one story over the other.

Sarah’s story is captivating as it takes you through the eyes of a naïve ten year-old trying to make sense of the nonsensical and survive the unthinkable. I applaud Ms. De Rosnay’s skill in keeping the emotionality subtle and void of graphic descriptions that often accompany works about the holocaust. She enables the reader to feel the terror and dread knowing the historical outcome as she takes us with Sarah through her own awakening of the events around her and her struggle dealing with the choices she makes to survive.

Sadly, I found Julia’s story trivial and thin in comparison as she focuses on her husband’s infidelity and how, as an American, she fails to fit into the Parisian culture. I didn’t feel the same strength and determination in Julia that was so evident in Sarah. While the connection to Julia’s family and that of Sarah’s is made, the emotional restraint used in Sarah’s story was overdone in Julia’s leaving the character’s flat and self-indulgent. Julia’s only spark is her obsession with finding Sarah and yet her motivation is muddied when it goes beyond curiosity to seeking some sort of amends for the past.

As the book progressed, about halfway, the story switches with less about Sarah’s view to that of a narrative of what Julia discovers and I missed Sarah’s voice. The story then continues to thin out and the plot pulls cliché at times. The ending tied up but in some ways that too felt a little contrived and too convenient for such a messy part of history.

Although I found some challenges reading this work, I do recommend it for anyone wanting to know more about the Holocaust and the little understood children of Vel d’Hiv.

 

Purchase Links