![]() ![]() The Nightingale is a novel about those women and the daring, dangerous choices they made to save their children and their way of life. Women tend to come home from the battlefield and say nothing and go on with their lives. In war, women’s stories are all too often forgotten or overlooked. And sometimes, perhaps, we don’t want to know what we would do to survive. In love we find out who we want to be in war we find out who we are. That question is at the very heart of The Nightingale. ![]() I found myself consumed with a single, haunting question, as relevant today as it was seventy years ago: When would I, as a wife and mother, risk my life-and more importantly, my child’s life– to save a stranger? Women who had paid terrible, unimaginable prices for their heroism. ![]() Vianne will soon have to learn how to live with the enemy if she doesn’t want to lose everything. Stories about women who had saved Jewish children and rescued downed airmen and put themselves in harm’s way to save others. The Nightingale (2015) This is probably Hannah’s most famous and beloved book, a story about Vianne Mauriac who has to say goodbye to her Antoine who is off to fight against the Nazis when they invade France. ![]() I had to keep digging, discovering, reading, and that story led me to others that were equally fascinating. Her story-one of heroism and danger and unbridled courage-inspired me to imagine the women in that world. But when research on World War II led me to the story of a young Belgian woman who had created an escape route out of Nazi-Occupied France, I was hooked. In truth, I did everything I could not to write this novel. Sometimes a story sneaks up on you, hits you hard and dares you to look away. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |