Sarah's Key

 

I suppose, in my mother's way of speaking, that I'm being punished for checking out a book right under another reader's nose. I should not have read Tatiana de Rosnay's Sarah's Key. That book has left me haunted and depressed. This is not to say that the book was not good. Let me explain.
The book consists of two alternating stories. Sarah, a Jewish girl from Paris, is part of the major round-up during the Holocaust. Not understanding her situation, she leaves her four-year old brother locked in a secret cabinet in their apartment to stay safe. She holds the key and is determined to rescue him before it is too late. Julia, an American ex-pat journalist, lives in Paris with her cruel, philandering, Parisian husband and becomes interested in the round-up of thousands of Jews held in the Veldrome d'Hiver and Sarah's story. She investigates what happened to Sarah as her marriage and life in France fall apart.
This is a powerful book about innocence lost, guilt, and the end of love. But as a mother to two children under five, there are certain things I can no longer read, that now horrify me and haunt me. While I am continuing to read and enjoy de Rosnay's other books, I wish I had left this one alone. Her language twists and turns beautifully, and she has a flair for description, but the imaginary reality of Sarah's Key is too much for me to handle.