The Paris Daughter
The Paris Daughter
By: Kristin Harmel
[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2023]
[This book was nominated for the ‘Best Historical Fiction’ category of the 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards Reading Challenge ]
“‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that sometimes, the roads we don’t know we’re walking are the ones that lead us to exactly where we’re meant to be.’”
Well, shoot. If this book doesn’t just rip your heart out. I had thought I was incapable of crying lately, but this book did me in.
You would think reading another WWII novel would be just like any other, but the way Kristin Harmel wrote these mother characters and the impossible choices they had to make during the war so poignantly, you couldn’t help but feel their pain in a unique way.
And also I’m a mother and things like this just cut right to my heart.
This is a beautiful story of motherhood, friendship, art, grief, and hope.
Allow me to give you a better description of the premise here:
This is the story of three mothers and friends— Juliette, Ruth, and Elise— living in Paris right before the German invasion.
Ruth, a Jew, makes the heart-breaking decision to send her children away through an organization that will give them new identities and places to live in order to protect them from capture. But she may never see them again. (Read Harmel’s book The Book of Lost Names for more on this story… plus there’s a smidge of crossover into this book.)
Elise, US citizen living in Paris and wife to a well-known artist who is part of an underground communist group, is in danger after her husband is captured and killed by Nazis after he gives them her name instead of his compatriots. She is forced to leave her two-year-old daughter with Juliette with false identity papers and escape the city in order to protect them both.
Juliette, US citizen living in Paris, now caring for her own family and Elise’s daughter— who is the same age as her own daughter— has already experienced the loss of a baby earlier in life and then experiences another incredible loss as a result of a wayward bomb. It hits her home and more of her family dies. With nothing left for her in Paris, she travels back to the United States to pick up the pieces of her life and find a way to hold onto all that she has lost.
That’s the first half of the book. The second half picks up after the liberation of Paris and the end of the war. Ruth and Elise are trying to reunite with their children. Juliette is nowhere to be found.
We see the anguish of Elise, not knowing what happened to her daughter.
We see the trauma of Juliette and how it turns into bitterness, resentment, and a strong grip on the past.
We see the strength and resilience of Ruth, who, though she experienced suffering, has found a way to move forward, and desires to help her friends do the same.
“‘So what do I do? How do I close the door on the life I had when I don’t know what happened to my child?’
‘That will come in time,’ Ruth replied. ‘Until then, my friend, you must keep putting one foot in front of the other. You must live, and one day, you will realize that the future lies ahead of you, and it is time to let the past go.’”
I really liked that this book goes beyond the war and explores how people move forward after such a painful time. Because life does keep happening and people must figure out how to continue living— how to just do the next thing.
Most WWII novels tend to stay within the confines of the war-time period; the exploration of grief in this book required Harmel to take it further and see how people can be shaped by the past but still face the future.
And what can happen when we clutch onto that which we no longer have. Though the depth of Juliette’s grief is understandable and we can hardly blame her, we see that grief can easily turn into bitterness and cause one to miss out on the beauty life can still hold even after incredible loss. That others can be deeply affected by our inability to move forward or see what’s in front of us.
“I want you to realize that you’re ignoring the present and throwing away the future.”
“There was a difference between honoring the past and being trapped by it.”
This was the basis of my only qualm with the book— the way Harmel resolved Juliette’s story. I don’t know if I liked it. I don’t know if I felt enough character change for the better by the end. Maybe that was intentional. But I wanted to see her move forward from her grief not just escape it.
I also really liked how Harmel delves into the aspect of ‘guilt’ that parents feel when they make hard choices for their children. Mom-guilt is real and the guilt these three women faced was immense. It is no easy choice to do what’s best for your child when it requires separation for safety.
“Being a parent is not about doing what is right for ourselves, is it? It’s about sacrificing all we can, big and small, to give our children their best chance at life.”
I just can’t even imagine the pain of that choice, yet it was one so many mothers made during WWII. The future was so uncertain. Harmel did an excellent job capturing this struggle and the feelings that came after it was all over.
Lastly, I enjoyed the incorporation of art in this book. Elise is an artist— painting and wood sculpture. Harmel describes Elise’s journey through her grief through her art. It also becomes a connection point between mother and daughter in a beautiful way.
I’m not an emotion-driven artist, but I can still appreciate the way that art evokes emotions in a lot of people and can be an important form of expression.
Harmel did a lot of research on carving and it showed in her descriptions. In the author’s note she suggests THIS WEBSITE of carver Mary May who answered a lot of her questions and even offers classes for wood carving. I’m not super familiar with wood carvings— especially of people— so some of that art in the book was harder to visualize than the paintings. I’m amazed how people can create such likenesses from carving a solid block of wood.
When I read historical fiction I always enjoy reading the author’s note to see what aspects were true and how they went about researching for their book. I appreciate all the legwork authors put in to make their books true to history as much as possible. Since apparently I didn’t retain much from my history classes in school, I always enjoy learning new things.
Something interesting Harmel shares is that the ocean liner her character sails on to the US— the SS United States— was a real ship built in 1950. It crossed the Atlantic in 3 days, 10 hours, and 40 minutes. breaking the previous record by 10 hours. And it still holds the record for fastest ocean liner to cross the Atlantic in either direction. That’s crazy to me! You’d think with new technology and building materials/methods we would be able to create something faster, but passenger travel by ship across the ocean is no longer in demand with the advent of air travel so it’s probably not a profitable endeavor.
Another historical thing worth mentioning was the errant bombs that were dropped in Paris like that in the book. Harmel shares that hundreds of citizens were killed and injured as a result of bombs that missed their targets. It reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Bomber Mafia, which talks about the invention of bomb sightings to ensure less missed targets and less citizen deaths. That precision bombing was an invention that changed the way war was waged and pointed to a more moral way to do it. Although it is weird to say that precision bombing is moral…
Recommendation
I would definitely recommend this book. I have a feeling this is going to make my list of best books in 2023. It is such a captivating story that you will become so invested in. The way she writes to evoke emotion in the reader is superb.
It’s not just ‘another WII' novel’ in my mind. It’s unique and beautiful and reminds us that grief, though deeply painful, does not have to be the end for us. There is a way to move forward. And the support of friends and loved ones is vital. It’s a tribute to all the mothers out there who sacrifice for their children.
Harmel says,
“I hope that when reading books like mine, you’re reminded that managing to pick ourselves up and put one foot in front of the other is always a victory— and that there is always light in the darkness, even if that spark is sometimes hard to see.”
The Paris Daughter is, as Harmel had hoped “another powerful affirmation of the human capacity for goodness, strength, and faith in the face of adversity.”
[Content Advisory: no f- or s-words or sexual content]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
This book releases June, 2023. You can preorder a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.
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