Book Report: The Nightingale
Author: Kristin Hannah
Publication: 2015
Pages: 438
Completion Date: 4/19/25
I wanted to read this book because I read another book from this author about three weeks ago that I enjoyed. Also, two friends recommended this book. The book covers a slice of WWII in a small French village and the relationship between two very different sisters and what they will do in moments of great challenge – ie. the occupation by the Germans.
Main Characters:
Papa Rossignol – father of Vianne & Isabelle
Isabelle Rossignol – protagonist of the story
Vianne Mauriac – sister of Isabelle & husband of Antoine
Antoine Mauiac – in a German POW camp throughout the first 85% of the book
Captain Beck – A German officer billeting in the Mauriac house
Herr Sturmbannfuhrer – After Captain Beck’s death, the new German resident of the Mauriac house
What I learned from this book:
As the war descends on Paris, Papa sends Isabelle away to join her older, married sister (Vianne) in the western coastal village of Carriveau, France. She is traveling by car with another family until it runs out of gas. She then begins walking until she meets Gaetan, a recently freed prisoner who is going to start resisting. They travel together to Vianne’s house and he is her first real love, but when she wakes in the morning, he is gone.
When the Germans reach Carriveau, a German captain of the army informs Vianne Mauriac that he will be living in her house with her. Isabelle really chafes at this thought and defies it while she is living there. She starts helping with the French Resistance by putting up fliers. Later, she is asked to move to Paris to assume greater duties while living with her father there. He is working for German High Command, which irks the patriotic Isabelle. Soon, Isabelle is leading downed Allied fighters across the Pyranees into Spain. Over the course of the war, she leads approximately 150 men on 30 separate journeys that take 4-5 days to complete.
Meanwhile, Vianne is struggling on her teacher’s salary and is disheartened when some of her Jewish friends are fired from their teaching positions. When she learns from Captain Beck that her friend Rachel will be taken away the next day, she attempts to help Rachel, Rachel’s daughter Sarah and the 3-year-old-boy Ari, escape to Vichy France. In the process, Sarah is shot and Rachel is found at the end of the next day. Vianne takes Ari for protection and with Captain Beck’s help, gets him a new ID showing that he is not Jewish, but a baby that Vianne & her husband adopted named David.
Isabelle helps a downed pilot near her home village find safety in Vianne’s barn. In the process of searching for the pilot, Captain Beck is killed, the downed pilot dies and Isabelle is shot in the shoulder. Gaetan comes to the rescue and disposes of Beck’s body and motorcycle and takes Isabelle for recovery after Vianne sews her back up. It is during this time that she & Gaetan really fall in love and try to spend as much time together in the future (whenever their Resistance efforts cross paths). It is at this time that Isabelle realizes that her father is only working at German High Command to gather intelligence and use his position to create fake ID’s for Jews & pilots trying to get to Spain, so he is not the traitor she thought he was.
Soon after the German army realizes that Captain Beck is gone, an SS officer Herr Sturmbannfuhrer (HSBF) moves in and takes Beck’s place. While Beck was a gentleman with a family, HSBF is cruel, taking the entire upper floor to himself. He drinks real coffee in front of Vianne and never shares it or any other food – even though she is slowly starving to make sure that her daughter Sophie and adopted son David have enough to eat. Soon after this, she starts helping other Jewish mothers place their children in a Catholic orphanage with fake papers that she supplies.
In approximately June of 1944, HSBF begins raping Vianne in her home, partly out of rage due to the German’s losses. About the time she realizes she is pregnant, HSBF leaves France as the Allies push across the country. A few days later, her husband Antoine appears – having escaped from the POW camp. Vianne is going to tell him about the pregnancy, but ultimately lets him think the baby is his.
The Germans are trying hard to catch The Nightingale, the person responsible for helping all the Allied pilots escape. They believe it is a man, even though it is Isabelle. They set a trap for her and she is captured and tortured. She holds out for two days. At this time, her father comes forward and claims to be the Nightingale, saving Isabelle’s life. He is shot and she is transported to various German concentration camps in the last year of the war, slowly dying more and more at each one – even as the war is coming to a close. In the end, she is saved and returned to Vianne’s care even though she has typhus, pneumonia and possibly tuberculosis. A Jewish organization comes and claims Ari (now named David), taking him to live with Rachels cousin in the US – which is traumatic for him (he is now 6-years-old) and for their family.
Throughout the book there have been a few chapters that takes place in the US in 1995 involving an elderly woman who receives a letter from France. The old woman is being invited to a reunion for the Resistance in France. She attends with her son, Julian, a US surgeon. As she enters the hall, people cheer for her and ask her to make a speech. It is only when she makes the speech that you realize that it is not Isabelle speaking, but her sister Vianne, who had immigrated to the US many years ago. She tells of the work that she did and what her sister did until her death soon after the end of the war. There are many former allied pilots present stating how her sister saved their life. A man approaches her and it is Ari, thanking her hiding him. Several other people of similar age are there, also praising her for saving them. Julian did not know any of this part of his mom’s life. She said she wil tell him all about it, except for one or two things, which she reserves as a secret that only a mom can have.
I will not list out how this book helped me given that it is a fictional novel. I really enjoyed the book and was very surprised by the ending.
