From Publishers Weekly
While watching television in the aftermath of President Kennedy's assassination, journalist Christine Lenoir witnesses Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald. This traumatic experience opens the floodgates of memory, causing her to wonder what in her sheltered French childhood could have produced such shadowy images of gunshots, fire and death. Raised by nuns since the age of six, Christine has always believed that her parents died in an influenza epidemic, but as she gradually pieces her childhood together, she learns that her family members were killed in the June 10, 1944, massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane, a French village just outside of Limoges. On that day, German soldiers rounded up 642 men, women and children in the village and killed them for no apparent reason. Lucas, a first-time novelist, does a fine job of blending her extensive research into Oradour's history with the story of the fictional character Christine, who escaped the massacre because she was playing in the woods. At times, the novel's shifting time frames can be disorienting, switching too often between the present in 1964, the wartime massacre nearly twenty years before, and the near past in 1963. However, the characterizations are haunting, and readers will feel compelled to turn the pages to find out whether Christine will be able to heal from the terrible burden of knowing her family's fate. In particular, Lucas does an outstanding job of weaving Catholic themes and faith through the book, daring to ask the unanswerable, age-old questions about God, suffering and the human capacity for evil.
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On June 10, 1944, the Nazis massacred 642 men, women, and children in the remote rural community of Oradour in southwest France. To this day, no one knows why. This first novel tells the story mainly from the viewpoint of a fictionalized character, one of the few survivors. Christine Lenoir was six years old when the soldiers shot her father and burned her mother and little brothers in the church. Raised in the convent, she believed her parents had died of influenza. Then, in 1963, she begins to remember and returns to confront the horror she has suppressed. The history is the drama here. The fictionalization is much too detailed and idyllic, not only Christine's sometimes maudlin meandering but also the many interspersed vignettes of the blissfully peaceful perfect folk in their 1944 sleepy community before the sudden end. It is the history of civilian massacre that haunts you; the ordinary lives cut short. Why has this World War II horror story been nearly forgotten? Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Written with quiet nuance and compassion, the novel is a compelling exploration of horrific loss and the mystery of faith.” -- --Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair
“...the characterizations are haunting, and readers will feel compelled to turn the pages...Lucas does an outstanding job....” -- Publishers Weekly
“Spellbinding.” -- Kirkus Reviews
“A book of uncommon grace, a triumph of faithful remembrance that leaves the reader shaken, appalled, and finally, deeply, enriched.” -- --Tim Farrington, author of The Monk Downstairs and Lizzie's War
“[T]his finely tuned first novel...inspires faith and redemption.” -- Library Journal
“...the history of civilian massacre...haunts you; the ordinary lives cut short.” -- Booklist
About the Author
Michele Claire Lucas has lived in Hong Kong and France and currently resides in New York. A former magazine photo editor, she is now a full-time writer. This is her first novel.
