Paris Echo

September 10, 2018
Faulks (A Week in December) immerses readers into a haunted Paris through the exhilarating stories of a teenage Moroccan immigrant and an American historian researching the experiences of women during the German occupation of WWII. Hannah spent a lonely year abroad as a college student in Paris, and as she reconnects to the city and her past two decades later she becomes overwhelmed by the combined despair of her subjects and her own lonely life. Meanwhile, Tariq, a 19-year-old runaway from Morocco, wants to live in Paris like his mother, who was born there and died when he was a young boy. A mutual friend introduces Tariq to Hannah, and she agrees to take him on as boarder. While Hannah listens to the voices of Parisian women through historic recordings that she struggles to understand, Tariq explores Paris and picks up part-time jobs around the Muslim district. One of his employers, an Algerian man, speaks with unschooled Tariq about the French-Algerian War, explaining how Tariq’s half-Algerian mother’s life fits in within the bloody history. As Tariq and Hannah become closer, he helps her translate the French witness testimonies, slowly creating a dependency and bond as the translation work becomes more involved. As the atrocities of war are unearthed, Hannah and Tariq both must reconsider their beliefs about democracy and the role of Paris within the war. Fans of Paula McClain and Ian McEwan will enjoy Faulks’s touching tale of two Parisian visitors looking to reimagine their self-identities in a changing world.

Narrating duo Elham Ehsas and Deborah McBride bring Faulks's newest historical fiction to life. The story is set in France during the Nazi occupation and in Tangier. Postdoctoral researcher Hannah investigates Parisian women's lives during WWII, and runaway Moroccan teenager Tariq searches for the mother he barely knew. As chapters alternate between the characters, McBride portrays Hannah with a bold tone and an American accent, and shifts gracefully to French when appropriate. Ehsas portrays Tariq in soft, sibilant tones that sound Moroccan-Arabic with a hint of French. The historical stories unfold side by side, with the present overlapping as 19-year-old Tariq and 30-something Hannah share a flat and embark on an affair. The stories of the past weave in and out of the present. M.B.K. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine