The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

The Nightingale was another book club selection. Set in occupied France, it tells the story of two sisters trying to survive and stay true to their beliefs.  One sister, Vianne, is conventional, married with a child, whose husband has gone to war.  The other sister, Isabelle, is highly unconventional. Even before the war, her approach to life was defiant and impulsive.  The two sisters have not been close since their mother died when they were children, and the war both pushes them together and tears them apart, as they struggle to find a common understanding about what can be compromised to survive and protect their loved ones.

The Nightingale brings to the fore the experiences of women during the occupation.  With most men in the army, the small communities in the countryside are populated mostly with women and children, the old and infirm, and the occupying army. The author makes the reader acutely aware of their vulnerability, often focusing on small domestic details like the daily struggle to obtain scant food rations.  But the novel also tries to capture the broad sweeping history of those years, from the chaotic exodus of Paris at the start of the occupation to the Resistance's work rescuing downed Allied pilots trapped behind enemy lines.

The author is ambitious, and her ambition may outstrip her abilities.  There is an element of skimming the surface in her writing. The characters fall into predictable stereotypes, and the plotting is both clunky and wildly implausible at times. The story wobbles uncertainly between trying to be a serious war novel and an overblown historical romance.  And although she does describe events in great detail, her fictional world never feels truly authentic. I wanted to engage more fully, but I was never able to achieve the requisite suspension of disbelief.

It reminded me of a lesser version of Irène Némirovsky's Suite française, covering many of the same incidents and themes. Of course, Némirovsky was living through the occupation as she wrote her work, and did not survive the war to finish it, so it is perhaps an unfair comparison.  

Upon finishing The Nightingale, I did not feel inspired to read other novels by Hannah, instead I felt a longing to re-read Suite française.

Three smileys out of five. 😀😀😀