French Twist

Sarah's Key

Tatiana de Rosnay

St. Martin's Press

I've been putting off writing this entry for almost a week now. While I readily admit to innumerable flaws, procrastination usually isn't one of them and I've been giving some serious thought as to why the content for this post has been so elusive.

Let me start by saying that I really, really got absorbed by this story. I started it last Saturday night when I grabbed it off the shelf and stuffed it in my purse. I was heading out to my local Chinese buffet and, like always, wanted a book to act as my companion. As I opened the cover, I was immediately transported to Paris. It is 1942 and I am witness to a Jewish family being roused from their beds, torn from their apartment in Le Marais, and marched to Vel d'Hiv. Led by the French police, it was one of the worst round ups of the war. The families were first sent to internment camps outside of Paris and then to Auschwitz. Very few survived.

I turn the page to start the next chapter and I'm suddenly in present day Paris, in the same apartment in Le Marais, watching a modern French family discuss the renovations they will make to their grandmother's home now that she has moved to a care facility. As the story progresses, the mother, an American who is never quite accepted by her French relatives, starts to dig into the building's "history" and learns that her in-laws took possession of the rooms in late July 1942. The chapters alternate between heroines -- a little Jewish girl and an American in Paris -- and I am lost. I finished the book on Sunday and am thinking of it still. Sarah's Key gets five stars. Please read it.