Those who are saved

Alexis Landau

Book - 2021

"In the spirit of We Were the Lucky Ones and We Must Be Brave, a heartbreaking World War II novel of one mother's impossible choice, and her search for her daughter against the odds"--

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Subjects
Genres
Historical fiction
Novels
Published
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons [2021]
Language
English
Main Author
Alexis Landau (author)
Physical Description
424 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 417-422).
ISBN
9780593190531
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Times of war force people into agonizing decisions with haunting repercussions. In her uneven yet hard-hitting sophomore novel, Landau (The Empire of the Senses, 2015) introduces Vera Volosenkova, a wealthy Russian Jewish immigrant in 1940 France. After receiving notice to report for internment, she and her husband, Max, worried about conditions in the camp, place their four-year-old daughter, Lucie, into her governess Agnes' care. They assume they won't be away long, and Agnes "can always bring Lucie home with her to Oradour-sur-Glane," Vera reasons. Nearly five years later, in California, Vera contemplates her broken marriage and stalled writing career. She and Max were unable to reclaim Lucie before escaping, and Vera constantly second-guesses her choice. Subsumed by anxiety and feeling lost, Vera begins an affair with a Hollywood screenwriter, Sasha, a kind man with a complicated past. The plot feels fragmented and slow midway through, and anyone familiar with French WWII history will guess the basic outline. Landau confidently illuminates her settings and her characters' psyches, though, and Vera's unwavering resolve to find Lucie amid the chaos of postwar France feels arrestingly real.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In Landau's powerful latest (after The Empire of the Senses) a Russian Jewish family is separated and forever changed in Vichy France. Vera and Max Volosenkova report to separate internment camps as ordered by the Vichy government in 1940, leaving their four-year-old daughter, Lucie, in the care of Agnes, Lucie's governess, who takes Lucie to a farm. After Vera and her friend Elsa Freudenberger escape, Elsa is free to pull strings to get her husband and Max freed from their camp. Vera reluctantly agrees to leave Lucie behind, understanding the increased risk of capture if they try to leave the country together. Vera, Max, Elsa, and Leon end up in California as the war continues, where Vera holds out hope for Lucie's survival with every letter she receives from Agnes. As the defeat of the Germans by the Allied forces becomes imminent, the emotional distance between Vera and Max intensifies, and Vera meets Sasha Rabinovitch, a screenwriter haunted by a suspicion that his biological father was a German soldier whom his Russian-born mother met during WWI. Vera returns to France after the war ends to find Lucie, and Sasha sets her up with a contact from the Resistance, hoping Vera will return to him. Landau brilliantly explores the blurred lines between good and evil as the characters wrestle with their own dire decisions and the choices of those they love. Once this magnetic book takes hold, it doesn't let go. Agent: Alice Tasman, Jean V. Naggar Literary. (Feb.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

DEBUT In the spring of 1940, on the eve of the German invasion, Vera and Max travel with their four-year-old daughter Lucie to the French seaside for a brief escape from the growing tension in Paris. When instructed by the occupying German authorities to report to Gurs Internment Camp, the parents decide to send Lucie away with her nanny to hide in the countryside. Using wit and connections, the couple escape, eventually landing in Hollywood, but they must leave Lucie behind. The news from Europe worsens, but Vera is determined to be reunited with her daughter. Landau's focus on a small cast of characters allows her to develop detailed settings and experiences for them to move through. She thoughtfully juxtaposes moments of daily life with the broader scale of war. Family relationships and romantic connections help build the story's framework but don't go into much depth. History buffs will appreciate the research that went into this book, including more than 20 titles provided in the author's reading list. VERDICT Readers looking for a strong foundation of historical fact blended into a fictional story, with the research sources to back it up, will find that mix right here.--Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A mother's frantic postwar search for her daughter is the highlight of Landau's latest. Landau's second novel--like her first, The Empire of the Senses (2015)--portrays haut bourgeois European Jews who find their carefully crafted assimilation no defense against barbarism. Having fled the Russian Revolution for Paris, Vera Volosenkovahas achieved success as a novelist. In June 1940, she and husband Max, an opera composer, are ensconced at their villa in the south of France, surrounded by prominent artists and intellectuals, all in denial about the coming German occupation. Landau effectively depicts the psychological disconnect between Vera's expectations--that civilization could not fail her twice in less than three decades--and the sudden reality of being ordered to "report for internment." Vera and Max are among the privileged few who manage to escape over the Pyrenees and sail to the United States. Out of necessity, Vera leaves their 4-year-old daughter, Lucie, in France in the care of trusted governess Agnes. Having relocated with many stellar contemporaries to Hollywood, Max finds a comfortable niche as a film composer. Wrongly or not--Max's inner turmoil is withheld from us in a way that seems manipulative--Vera resents his seeming indifference, particularly after news breaks of a massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane, Lucie's last known refuge. An alternating thread involves Hollywood screenwriter and aspiring director Sasha, whose origins lie in the shtetls and the Lower East Side. Plotlines converge, like America's entry into the war, at first too slowly and then breathlessly as Vera returns to chaotic, post-Liberation France on a desperate quest to find Lucie among thousands of missing children. Hollywood's prewar reluctance to offend Hitler is scantly touched on, and the United States' embargo on refugees not at all. As the novel progresses, the main conflict is between Vera's remorse about leaving Lucie and the protective bubble she inhabits. With muted power, this book plumbs the role privilege plays in fate. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Chapter 1 Vera February 1945, Malibu, California She cupped the lukewarm water and splashed it over her face again and again. The obsessive remembering ceased. A boon, if even for one breath, not to think. She reached for a nearby towel, but sensed someone standing behind her. Her eyes fluttered open. Eyelashes wet, chin dripping, she adjusted to the white sunlit bathroom. In the mirror above the sink, a young woman calmly watched her from the doorway. Helix of dark hair curled over one shoulder, brown liquid eyes, yellow silk blouse, gold chain around her neck with the heart dangling from it. Her daughter, but her daughter at eighteen, all grown. Not the four-year-old daughter Vera had left behind in France. When she spun around, the girl was gone. Vera stared into the vacant doorway and steadied herself against the sink basin, the cool ceramic pressing into the small of her back. "Lucie?" she whispered into the still air. "Lucie?" She never stopped thinking of the day they left Lucie, as if reliving it would crystallize or explain something that she had overlooked. But no matter how many times Vera circled back, that day remained implacable; it cared nothing for how swiftly a life could darken. They had gone on holiday early, leaving Paris in the beginning of May 1940, in anticipation of the occupation, decamping to the southern seaside town Sanary-sur-Mer, where they kept a summerhouse. The Werfels, the Freudenbergers, and Hugo Lafont and his wife, Ines, were already there, and Max and Vera felt safe in the south, among friends, discussing the war in lowered tones as they sipped chilled champagne in Elsa Freudenberger's garden among the lemon trees, the scent of lime blossom infiltrating their fear, lessening it. And the heady scent of fig trees, azure waters lapping against a long sandy coastline, a forest full of pines Vera loved to stroll through, notebook in hand, preparing for an image or a phrase that might present itself, made it seem as though their circumstances had not been greatly altered. She had just finished her third novel, about an old French farming family from Vosges. The family's attachment to the land and its customs stretches back generations, until the Great War upends their lives, taking away their sons. The novel is from the mother's point of view, and the loss of her sons causes delirious grief. After the war, one son returns, only to relay that the other one died on the Eastern Front. The son who survived has changed, no longer caring for the farm, the family, or the land he's inherited. He only cares for freedom. His own personal freedom. And so the mother learns another kind of grief. Some afternoons, Vera spread a cardigan over the coniferous earth and lay down, contemplating the thrushes rustling overhead, replaying bits and pieces of dialogue the mother has said, or might say, to her estranged son, and, cupping a fuzzy peach in the palm of her hand, she felt lucky. But one early evening in the beginning of June, the setting sun filtering through the linen curtains, Vera listened to the news in the little room on the ground floor where she kept the radio. The terse male voice on the wireless reported that the situation did not look positive, neither in Belgium nor in the Netherlands. Lying on the small worn sofa, she closed her eyes, palms resting on her abdomen, calmed by how naturally, without any effort, her breath rose and fell, wondering what Sabine, the cook, had prepared for dinner, deciphering various smells emanating from the kitchen on the far side of the house: Salmon with fennel and raisins? Then she heard: "All foreign nationals residing in the precincts of Paris, and all persons between the ages of seventeen and fifty-five who do not possess French citizenship, must report for internment." She sat up, light-headed, a metallic secretion flooding her mouth. Blinking into the falling dark, she switched on the lamp. "Max," she called, standing up. Walking out of the room, trying not to break into a run, she yelled, "Max," with a startling roughness. She burst into the dining room, finding the table set, the silver gleaming, the wineglasses waiting to be filled with their preferred dry white, from the Marsanne grape. Max smoked his pipe in front of the open French doors, surveying the olive trees, their delicate branches cut out against the silvery night. Lucie was sprawled across the sheepskin rug, colored pencils strewn around her. She had drawn a picture of their cat, Mourka, with his dangling pink tongue and elongated whiskers. "What's all the racket?" Max asked, resting his pipe on the windowsill. Lucie glanced up from her drawing. Vera stared around the room, as if some irrevocable change should be evident. "I heard on the wireless, about the internment." "Oh, that," Max said in his usual nonchalant manner. "The precincts of Paris. Remember now, that's all they said." He strode over to her, pushing up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt. Lucie watched them closely. He cupped Vera's shoulder, his warm hand lingering there. "From a military point of view, there's no conceivable reason for interning us here in the south." "What about Paul?" Vera asked, searching Max's face at the mention of his younger brother, who had stayed in Paris. Max had urged Paul to join them, but he brushed off the occupation as if it were a trifle-he couldn't be bothered to worry. She missed him, thinking about how he always arrived late to dinner parties, but was charming, regardless. Lucie adored him, treasuring the miniature green alligator purse he had given her for her last birthday, an extravagant and unnecessary gift, but that was Paul. Worry bloomed across Max's face. "He said we're all overreacting, like a bunch of lemmings jumping off a cliff." But she could see that he feared for Paul and his parents, as well as for the rest of his extended family, whereas Vera had so few relatives, comparatively. Her father had died of heart failure just before Lucie was born. And she'd fallen out with her mother, who, after her father's death, took up with a South American polo player. The last time they spoke, her mother flaunted having paid for forged papers and suggested that Vera not call on her again, as such contact would compromise her new identity. Agnes came through the double doors that led into the opposite hallway. "Is everything all right?" Normally, she would have knocked, waiting timidly for permission to enter. She had the night off, and Vera had expected that she would take one of her beloved long walks and return after dinner with bits and pieces of gossip she had picked up in town. Vera said that of course everything was all right, casting a look at Lucie, but there was a sharp knock at the front door just as Agnes started explaining something she'd heard from the neighbors. A gust of wind caused the open windows to swing shut. For a moment everyone froze, and Vera thought: Now they have come for us. They are going to throw us into a camp. I'll be separated from Lucie. She began to sweat, and tried to walk, as naturally as possible, to Lucie. Kneeling down next to her on the rug, Vera felt her breath shorten, her pulse accelerating. Sabine appeared from the kitchen. "Shall I get the door?" It was only the Freudenbergers, thank God. Just seeing Elsa in her silk kimono decorated with golden koi, her hair pulled back into a severe bun, and Leon in his pin-striped suit and straw fedora washed Vera with relief when she ushered them inside. They looked the same. Perhaps things weren't so bad. But then Leon asked, somewhat shakily, clutching his hat in his hands, "Have you heard?" Max sauntered out of the living room and retorted, "Oh, yes. We've heard. Come on, let's have a drink." Over a bottle of whiskey, they obsessively discussed the situation. The later it grew, the blurrier all the reasons appeared for why the internment had been put into effect, and whether it would apply to Vera and Max. Both were from St. Petersburg; their families had immigrated to Paris during the revolution, over twenty years ago. "Since then, we've lived happily and quietly in France. It's our home," Max reflected, stroking his silvery beard. Vera paced the length of the Oriental rug, rubbing her palms against her pleated skirt. "But we're foreign nationals. We don't have French citizenship, and the radio said all foreign nationals must report-" "Yes, but you see," Elsa interrupted, perched on the edge of the cushioned settee, "the French government has more reason to intern us because we're German, and this is a time of war, whereas you are merely Russians, having resided in France for much longer than we have." "We're Jewish arrivistes," Leon remarked sardonically from the corner. Max said, "The Germans have persecuted you, not just for being Jewish, but Leon, you publicly denounced Hitler in your many articles and books. You're the 'enemy of the state number one.' Where was that printed again?" He poured more whiskey into Leon's glass. "Well, the point is, the French government will directly realize that you are an enemy of Germany and a lover of France. They won't intern you." "Or," Leon offered, shifting in the deep leather chair, "the French government will proceed against us only to give the public the impression that France is actually doing something to repel the Germans." Vera noticed the sweat sprinkling the back of Leon's pale blue dress shirt, despite his cool demeanor. "Even if that were the case," Max interjected, pouring himself another thimble of whiskey, "there's one thing we can be sure of." He paused for dramatic effect, relishing how they waited for him to inject some reason into this tangled night. "As we have all experienced countless times, the utterly ineffective workings of the French bureaucracy will ensure that it will take ages for the paperwork to arrive here in Sanary to intern us. By then, we'll be gone." Elsa and Leon heartily agreed, placated by Max's logic; they could remain in this summery cocoon a little longer. And Max, smoothing down the front of his shirt with panther-like calm, was satisfied with himself for saving the evening, as he would later say in bed, expecting praise from Vera when all she felt was cold dread. After the initial shock of the news that night, the tone turned less manic, and during the momentary lulls when the conversation drifted elsewhere, the evening nearly recaptured the languor they had enjoyed on other summer nights. But even as they entertained the possibilities, and examined the various angles of their predicament, Vera felt her fixed place in the world beginning to unhinge and loosen. Every noise grated; every gesture appeared imbued with portentous meaning. The occasional birdcall trilling in the night made her jump, and the clatter of dishes cleared from the table in the next room sounded hostile. Lucie's barreling run down the hallway, attempting to escape the bath, sent a sharp pang through Vera, as though all had turned irretrievably dark, even as Elsa's heady perfume, with its hints of benzoin, reminded her of other times when they would sit idly after dinner, smoking and drinking and lamenting some insignificant, comical aspect of their lives. The following morning, while Vera sat at the breakfast table, nursing a coffee, her head pounding from too much whiskey, the cook, Sabine, appeared before her with a stricken face. She announced, with an air of self-importance, that she had read a notice posted in the town hall: all persons of foreign birth living in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-C(tm)te d'Azur region who had not yet reached the age of fifty-six must report to the Gurs internment camp in southwestern France, effective immediately. Max, listening from the doorway, barefoot in silk pajamas, asked casually, as if to reassure Sabine that this was all an overreaction, "Surely there's been some mistake? Two days ago, the wireless specified that only those living in Paris must report for internment." Lucie barged into the living room, demanding something. Vera wished now that she could recall what: A glass of milk, a jam sandwich? Vera sharply replied that she must request it politely. Lucie pouted and then bolted into the sunlit garden. Watching her daughter's birdlike shoulder blades protrude from beneath the cotton straps of her sundress, her smooth skin browned from the sun, Vera understood, in a chilling flash, that she and Max were not French. It didn't matter that they were here now, in the South of France. As a foreigner, she could not shield Lucie, and pictured them at Gurs camp, lying on the filthy hay-covered ground where animals had been corralled, lice roving through the hay. Taking a sip of coffee, she could already taste the camp's metallic water, and the watery broth they would call soup. Lucie yanked off a few lemons from the tree and lobbed them over the low stone wall. Agnes's voice twitched with irritation: "Lucie, please stop. You're ruining the lemon trees." Vera blinked into the white sunlight, watching Lucie disobey. Pressing the heel of her palm into her forehead, she was thinking: How are we going to get out of this? Sabine muttered in the background, wondering if they would leave Sanary, and then who would look after the house? Max rejoined, "But Lucie is French! Born in Paris. She has citizenship. Let's not panic." This should have temporarily relieved Vera, but the words "stateless" and "foreigner" looped through her mind. Words people had often used to describe her family when they had immigrated to Paris in 1917, when all she wanted was to be the daughter of a baker or a shopkeeper, living near Javel station with a name like Charlotte Moreau or Cecile Laurent . . . a common, ordinary name, a name that would never disturb or give pause, instead of Vera Dunayevskaya. When she married Max, she took his name, Volosenkova, equally unpronounceable, inducing the same silent derision to pass over people's faces, as clouds can momentarily block the sun. When Vera enrolled Lucie in the lycZe, the same questioning looks crossed the teachers' faces, and she knew that Lucie would also be marked as not quite French enough for the French. And yet, despite always being described as "exotic" and "foreign," in a tone coated with false admiration, France ran through her blood: columnar cypresses lining dusty roads, cool stone churches offering shade and respite, the language she knew before any other. Soft and bending, sharp and brooding, it captured all she'd ever felt, harkening back to Agnes, who was once her own governess, singing her to sleep: "You may have taken Alsace and Lorraine, but in spite of you, we will always be French!" The language of dreams, streaming through her fingertips, into the pen, onto the page. A phrase, a certain word, provided the incendiary for all else. Without this language, this soil, what was she but a nebulous entity drifting through time and space? Excerpted from Those Who Are Saved by Alexis Landau All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.