Sarah’s Key / Tatiana de Rosnay

Sarah’s Key charts two parallel stories—one from Nazi-occupied Paris and the other sixty years later. The common element is an apartment on the rue de Saintonge and its horrible secret that links two families a generation apart. The story begins with events set in motion by the horrific roundup of Parisian Jews during an initiative known as the Vel’ d’Hiv, (named for the Vélodrome d’hiver) in which Jewish families were warehoused in an indoor stadium under the most inhumane conditions by the French police (not the occupying German Nazis) until they were shipped off to internment camps and, in most cases, their eventual deaths.

Julia is a journalist who uncovers the details linking 1942 and 2002, a link that involves her immediate family. The tragic secrets of rue de Saintonge are gradually revealed until the end of the novel where a tidy, but nevertheless quite plausible resolution, pulls all the narrative strands together.

This is a powerful book, full of emotion, full of grief. The central narrative event is almost as horrifyingly shocking as the “Nehmen Sie das Mädchen” scene in Sophie’s Choice. This is a memorable work that will stay with you long after the last page is read.

If you’re looking for a compelling story about Paris’s Marais district, Sarah’s Key definitely trumps Cara Black’s Murder in the Marais (see my blurb below, but of course comparing the two books is a little like comparing apples and oranges…)

Click here for the movie trailer (with Kristin Scott Thomas).

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