Paris Never Leaves You

Starred review from March 1, 2020

Paris, under German occupation near the end of World War II, and Jews are still being rounded up for shipment to the death camps. Charlotte Foret, whose husband has perished in the war, manages a bookstore visited with increasing frequency by Julian Bauer, an officer in the German Wehrmacht. Over time, the officer brings food and other hard-to-get provisions for Charlotte and her young daughter, Vivi. Despite Charlotte's efforts to resist him, an intimate bond develops between her and the officer. As this gripping tale is unfolding amid vivid depictions of Paris in wartime, Feldman (The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank) flashes forward to Charlotte and Vivi in New York City, where a distant acquaintance and his wife help her and Vivi relocate after the war and begin a new life marked by conflicts arising from long-held secrets. VERDICT Things are seldom as they seem in this engrossing tale of identity, survival, loyalty, and love. With frequent time shifts and dubious identities, the author adds considerable depth to her well-crafted tale. Recommended with enthusiasm to anyone with an interest in Paris at war and the much broader themes noted above.--Edward B. Cone, New York

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April 20, 2020
The question of what it means to be Jewish drives Feldman’s nuanced WWII story of love and survival (after Terrible Virtue). Nine years after the war, Charlotte Foret, a widow from France, lives in New York City with her teenage daughter, Vivi, working as an editor at a publishing house. Vivi learns to navigate the social whirl of her school as one of only a handful of Jewish students, while Charlotte tries to deny a growing attraction to her married boss. When Charlotte receives, and tries to ignore, a letter postmarked Bogotá, Colombia, a sanctuary for many former Nazis, she realizes she cannot escape the memories of occupied Paris. In flashbacks, Feldman vividly recreates those years as Charlotte runs a Paris bookstore where she meets and befriends German Wehrmacht officer Julian Bauer. She rationalizes that Julian (the subject of the letters she receives from Bogotá) is different from other Nazis; though he assumes she’s Jewish and getting by on false identity papers, he’s unconcerned. The night Julian saves Charlotte and Vivi from a roundup, he and Charlotte become lovers and he confides a dangerous secret that gives Feldman’s story a gasp-worthy spin, elevating an otherwise conventional wartime love story. With its appealing heroine and historically detailed settings, romance fans will find this satisfying. Agent: Emma Sweeney, Emma Sweeney Agency.

May 1, 2020
Nothing is quite what it seems in this historical novel set in occupied Paris during World War II and the New York publishing world of the 1950s. Charlotte Foret, a young widow with an 18-month-old daughter, runs a bookstore in Nazi-controlled Paris. Her husband has been killed in the war; her father, a left-wing publisher, is on the run. Food is scarce while the fear of arrest and deportation to a concentration camp is constant. A polite German officer becomes a regular at the store, browsing and occasionally buying a volume. Charlotte is disturbed by his presence and tries to ignore him. But when he turns up one day with an orange for her hungry child, things begin to change. Intercut throughout are scenes from Charlotte's life in Manhattan a decade later. With the help of Horace Field--a prominent publisher who knew her father--and Horace's wife, Hannah, Charlotte and daughter Vivi have made a fresh start. Charlotte works as an editor for Horace while Vivi, now 14, is a lively, inquisitive scholarship student. Horace is confined to a wheelchair from wounds suffered in the war; nonetheless, he begins to display a more than mentorlike interest in Charlotte. Complications ensue. It's hard to get your bearings in the novel's awkward beginning pages. But author Feldman soon regains control, and the narrative proceeds at a brisk pace. There are multiple revelations: All the major players have something to hide. Though some of their secrets are a bit improbable--leaving the reader feeling intentionally misled--it doesn't much matter. The story is involving, and the big-ticket themes--having to do with loyalty, betrayal, and what it takes to survive--are mostly handled in a graceful, nuanced way (though Charlotte's guilt does feel overblown). Wartime Paris is described in vivid, sometimes harrowing, detail. An uneven but engrossing page-turner.

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June 1, 2020
The hardships and degradations of war elicit the best and worst in people and can drive them to do desperate things. Widowed, living in occupied Paris during WWII, Charlotte Foret works in a bookstore and tries to raise her daughter, Vivi. Starvation and disease haunt them until a German soldier, Julian Bauer, enters the bookshop and takes a liking to mother and daughter. In 1950s New York, safely employed at a publishing house and renting part of her sponsors' house, Charlotte receives a letter that carries with it all memories of her illicit wartime behavior, which she's kept secret from Vivi and from their sponsors. Her shame of "sleeping with the enemy" (who also carries a secret) is compounded by claiming an identity that is not rightfully hers. Meanwhile, Vivi's curiosity about discovering her roots threatens to uncover the truth. Fans of Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See (2014) and Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale (2015) may want to pick this up, and book groups are sure to find much to dissect and discuss.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)