From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. 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). It beautifully conveys Julia's conflicting loyalties, and makes Sarah's trials so riveting, her innocence so absorbing, that the book is hard to put down. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Review
“A shocking, profoundly moving, and morally challenging story…nothing short of miraculous. It will haunt you, it will help to complete you…”—Augusten Burroughs, New York Times bestselling author of Wolf at the Table and Running with Scissors
“It will make you cry--and remember.” –Jenna Blum, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us
“This is a remarkable historical novel. Like Sophie's Choice, it's a book that impresses itself upon one's heart and soul forever.” –Naomi Ragen, author of The Tenth Song“Sarah’s Key unlocks a star-crossed, heart-thumping story… This book will stay on your mind long after it's back on the shelf.” – Risa Miller, author of Welcome to Heavenly Heights
“Rich in mystery, intrigue and suspense, Sarah’s Key made me wonder and weep.” –The Roanoke Times
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Review
“Polly Stone's delivery of Sarah's story is riveting with its spare emotional power.” ―AudioFile Magazine
“This is a remarkable historical novel, a book which brings to light a disturbing and deliberately hidden aspect of French behavior towards Jews during World War II. Like Sophie's Choice, it's a book that impresses itself upon one's heart and soul forever.” ―Naomi Ragen, author of The Saturday Wife and The Covenant
“Sarah's Key unlocks the star crossed, heart thumping story of an American journalist in Paris and the 60-year-old secret that could destroy her marriage. This book will stay on your mind long after it's back on the shelf.” ―Risa Miller, author of Welcome to Heavenly Heights
“The story is heart-wrenching, and Polly Stone gives an excellent performance, keeping a low-key tone through descriptions of horror that would elicit excessive dramatics from a less talented performer.” ―Publishers Weekly
“Sarah's Key opens a door into this heartbreaking WWII episode that's been cloaked in silence, making it intensely real and affecting.” ―Book Page
“Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surroudn this painful episode.” ―News-Record
“Polly Stone's flawless transitions alternate between English and French and the 1942 and present time setting of two stories.” ―The Chapel Hill Herald
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
Paris, July 1942
The girl was the first to hear the loud pounding on the door. Her room was closest to the entrance of the apartment. At first, dazed with sleep, she thought it was her father, coming up from his hiding place in the cellar. He’d forgotten his keys, and was impatient because nobody had heard his first, timid knock. But then came the voices, strong and brutal in the silence of the night. Nothing to do with her father. “Police! Open up! Now!”
The pounding took up again, louder. It echoed to the marrow of her bones. Her younger brother, asleep in the next bed, stirred. “Police! Open up! Open up!” What time was it? She peered through the curtains. It was still dark outside.
She was afraid. She remembered the recent, hushed conversations she had overheard, late at night, when her parents thought she was asleep. She had crept up to the living room door and she had listened and watched from a little crack through the panel. Her father’s nervous voice. Her mother’s anxious face. They spoke their native tongue, which the girl understood, although she was not as fluent as them. Her father had whispered that times ahead would be difficult. That they would have to be brave and very careful. He pronounced strange, unknown words: “camps,” “roundup, a big roundup,” “early morning arrests,” and the girl wondered what all of it meant. Her father had murmured that only the men were in danger, not the women, not the children, and that he would hide in the cellar every night.
He had explained to the girl in the morning that it would be safer if he slept downstairs, for a little while. Till “things got safe.” What “things,” exactly? thought the girl. What was “safe”? When would things be “safe” again? She wanted to find out what he had meant by “camp” and “roundup,” but she worried about admitting she had eavesdropped on her parents, several times. So she had not dared ask him.
“Open up! Police!”
Had the police found Papa in the cellar, she asked herself. Was that why they were here, had the police come to take Papa to the places he had mentioned during those hushed midnight talks: the “camps,” far away, out of the city?
The girl padded fast on silent feet to her mother’s room, down the corridor. Her mother awoke the minute she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s the police, Maman,” the girl whispered. “They’re banging on the door.”
Her mother swept her legs from under the sheets, brushed her hair out of her eyes. The girl thought she looked tired, old, much older than her thirty years.
“Have they come to take Papa away?” pleaded the girl, her hands on her mother’s arms. “Have they come for him?”
The mother did not answer. Again the loud voices down the hallway. The mother swiftly put a dressing gown over her night dress, then took the girl by the hand and went to the door. Her hand was hot and clammy, like a child’s, the girl thought.
“Yes?” the mother said timidly, without opening the latch.
A man’s voice. He shouted her name.
“Yes, Monsieur, that is me,” she answered. Her accent came out strong, almost harsh.
“Open up. Immediately. Police.”
The mother put a hand to her throat and the girl noticed how pale she was. She seemed drained, frozen. As if she could no longer move. The girl had never seen such fear on her mother’s face. She felt her mouth go dry with anguish.
The men banged again. The mother opened the door with clumsy, trembling fingers. The girl winced, expecting to see green-gray suits.
Two men stood there. One was a policeman, wearing his dark blue knee-length cape and a high, round cap. The other man wore a beige raincoat. He had a list in his hand. Once again, he said the woman’s name. And the father’s name. He spoke perfect French. Then we are safe, thought the girl. If they are French, and not German, we are not in danger. If they are French, they will not harm us.
The mother pulled her daughter close to her. The girl could feel the woman’s heart beating through her dressing gown. She wanted to push her mother away. She wanted her mother to stand up straight and look at the men boldly, to stop cowering, to prevent her heart from beating like that, like a frightened animal’s. She wanted her mother to be brave.
“My husband is . . . not here,” stuttered the mother. “I don’t know where he is. I don’t know.”
The man with the beige raincoat shoved his way into the apartment.
“Hurry up, Madame. You have ten minutes. Pack some clothes. Enough for a couple of days.”
The mother did not move. She stared at the policeman. He was standing on the landing, his back to the door. He seemed indifferent, bored. She put a hand on his navy sleeve.
“Monsieur, please–,” she began.
The policeman turned, brushing her hand away. A hard, blank expression in his eyes.
“You heard me. You are coming with us. Your daughter, too. Just do as you are told.”
Copyright © 2007 by Tatiana de Rosnay. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
TATIANA DE ROSNAY is the author of ten novels, including the New York Times bestselling novel A Secret Kept. Sarah's Key is an international sensation with over five million copies sold in thirty-eight countries worldwide. It has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than two years, and has now been made into a major motion picture. Together with Dan Brown and Stieg Larsson, Tatiana was named one of the top three fiction writers in Europe in 2010. She lives with her husband and two children in Paris, where she is at work on her next novel. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
There had been over four thousand Jewish children penned in the Vel’ d’Hiv’, aged between two and twelve. Most of the children were French, born in France. None of them came back from Auschwitz.Highlighted by 691 Kindle readers
