Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten-year-old Girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard - their secret hiding place - and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.Sixty Years Later: Sarah's story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist investigating the roundup. In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to Sarah, and to questions about her own romantic future.
In Sarah's Key, Tatiana de Rosnay offers up a mesmerizing story in which a tragic past unfolds, the present is torn apart, and the future is irrevocably altered.
A Reader's Experience...
The characters in this story are a real testament to the fragility but also to the strength of the human spirit, the child's spirit and will to survive, and the need to confront reality, step forward and continue on.
Behind the tragedy and desperite circumstances of a history which I, admittedly, still have far too little awareness of, there develops a need for closure and healing which is really only beginning at the end of the novel. There are huge moral questions as to how we move on and do better to make the world a more human place, and I appreciate the fact that this novel seems to accept that while we can't undo the mistakes of the past, we do have to acknowledge what has happened and make our peace with it, especially if we don't want hisory to repeat itself.
The novel is skillfully compelling and at times surprising. The interest builds as we discover how the lives of two key characters, seperated by time and circumstance, are finally pieced together.
When I think upon the circumstances that my own future children might be living in, I know that they will have heartaches, and can only hope that they won't live through anything near what Sarah had lived through. But whatever their struggles are, I would want to set them up with the same character, intellegence, and resourcefulness to carry them through it.
An aspect of the novel that stood out for me was Julia's powerful dedication towards finding out who Sarah was and what had happened to her. It is as if she is extremely driven by some external force, as if Sarah's story is indeed the "key" to awakening a new perspective and an understanding on her own life that is essential to her ability to develop and thrive as the determined person she is. In other words, Sarah's tragedy held a greater purpose, with such strong effects lingering on some sixty years later. Who or what might be the necessary key to my life, or yours?
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