Those Who Are Saved by Alexis Landau

Those Who Are Saved by Alexis LandauThose Who Are Saved Buy the BookGoodreads
four-half-stars

In the summer of 1940, as the Nazis prepare to occupy France and force its foreign inhabitants into internment camps, wealthy Russian Jewish émigré Vera has just hours to make an impossible choice: does she subject her four-year-old daughter Lucie to the horrors of the camp, or does she send her into hiding with her trusted governess until safe to retrieve her? Believing the war will end soon, Vera chooses to leave Lucie in safety. She could not have known that she and her husband would have an opportunity to escape to America—or that Lucie and her governess will have fled to family in rural France, too far to reach in time. Five years later, with her marriage faltering and her writing stalled, Vera—safe under the surreal sun of California—is haunted by her love for Lucie and her faith that her daughter still lives. As her determination to return to France and find Lucie crystallizes, she meets Sasha, a man on his own search for meaning. Together, Vera and Sasha will journey to Lucy and find her fate. Undeniably powerful and gorgeously written, THOSE WHO ARE SAVED recounts a mother and daughter’s heartbreaking journey and separation, a war and a continent apart.

 

Alexis Landau is a graduate of Vassar College and received an MFA from Emerson College and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. She is the author of The Empire of the Senses and lives with her husband and two children in Los Angeles.

four-half-stars