A blend of fiction and history

BOOK REVIEW: SAMANTHA MIMERAN

Sarah’s Key, Tatiana de Rosnay, Published by St Martins Griffin

I’LL come back for you later. I promise.” These words -— spoken by 10-year-old Sarah to her little brother Michel when she is arrested with her family by the French police -— set the tone for this heart-wrenching and sorrowful tale.

She whispers them as she locks him in a bedroom cupboard -— their secret hiding place -— thinking she will be back within a few hours during what has become known as the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup in Paris in July 1942.

So begins Sarah’s Key, a gripping tale of sorrow and despair. We hear Sarah’s story through the eyes of journalist Julia Jarmond, who is asked to write an article about this black day in France’s history on Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, in May 2002.

Through her modern-day investigation, Julia encounters a path of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. She finds herself driven to retrace the girl’s experiences, from that terrible time in the Vel’d’Hiv’, to the camps, and further. While investigating Sarah’s tragedies, Julia begins to question her own life and place in France, and re-evaluate her marriage.

Tatiana de Rosnay’s novel skilfully weaves fiction with history. The two storylines — that of 10-year-old Sarah in 1942 and 45-year-old Julia in 2002 — could each stand on their own, yet they overlap to create a masterful web of mystery, however desperate and sad.

The black events of the 1942 Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, in which 13,152 Jews were arrested in Paris and the suburbs and deported and murdered at Auschwitz, is considered one of France’s darkest hours. In the Velodrome d’Hiver -— an indoor cycle track (or velodrome) in the rue N√©laton -— 1129 men, 2916 women and 4115 children were kept prisoner in inhuman conditions by the government of the Vichy police, by order of the Nazi government.

We see the events of 1942 unfold through Sarah’s eyes: her 10-year-old mind questions why she is different. She struggles to understand the cruelty she is witnessing, and she grapples with her identity as a Jew, and the consequences of this. She is tormented by her brother’s fate -— “But I promised him I’d come back Papa. I promised him.” However, this is possibly what ultimately helps her survive.

De Rosnay’s narrative style is interesting, in that the early sections of the novel devoted to Sarah are told by an omniscient narrator, who refers to Sarah distantly as “the girl”. The reader is privy to her thoughts and fears, and witnesses her actions and the actions of those around her. The distance the narrator provides makes it bearable for the reader to perceive the destruction of her innocence. There is an urgency to her world that is coming apart at the seams.

In contrast, Julia’s sections are told in her own voice. They are less intense, although her emotional turmoil is plain as she uncovers the details of the Vel’d’Hiv’ and its connection to her French husband Bertrand and his family. This personal connection and the atrocities of the event haunt her; and her husband’s apathy to this causes her to question her relationship with him and their marriage itself.

The novel demonstrates that in 1942 the French did not simply stand by, but were sometimes willing participants in the murder of Jews. And Julia constantly questions the apathy and ignorance of the French in these events. Her need to understand and remember Sarah’s story becomes an obsession -— one she doesn’t let go of until the last page of the book. Through Julia, the theme of “Remember. Never forget” is woven throughout the narrative.

An engaging novel with a skilful blend of narrative fiction and historical events, Sarah’s Key will linger long after you turn its last page.

Tatiana de Rosnay has published nine novels, and works as a journalist and literary critic. Sarah’s Key is the first novel she wrote in English, her mother tongue; it’s being published in 22 countries, and the film rights have been sold.