Those Who Are Saved

October 15, 2020
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.

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Starred review from November 23, 2020
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.

January 1, 2021

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

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2021
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.

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