The Room on Rue Amelie
Kristin Harmel, 2018
Gallery Books
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501171406
Summary
This powerful novel of fate, resistance, and family tells the tale of an American woman, a British RAF pilot, and a young Jewish teenager whose lives intersect in occupied Paris during the tumultuous days of World War II.
When newlywed Ruby Henderson Benoit arrives in Paris in 1939 with her French husband Marcel, she imagines strolling arm in arm along the grand boulevards, awash in the golden afternoon light.
But war is looming on the horizon, and as France falls to the Nazis, her marriage begins to splinter, too.
Charlotte Dacher is eleven when the Germans roll into the French capital, their sinister swastika flags snapping in the breeze. After the Jewish restrictions take effect and Jews are ordered to wear the yellow star, Charlotte can’t imagine things getting much worse.
But then the mass deportations begin, and her life is ripped forever apart.
Thomas Clarke joins the British Royal Air Force to protect his country, but when his beloved mother dies in a German bombing during the waning days of the Blitz, he wonders if he’s really making a difference.
Then he finds himself in Paris, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, and he discovers a new reason to keep fighting—and an unexpected road home.
When fate brings them together, Ruby, Charlotte, and Thomas must summon the courage to defy the Nazis—and to open their own broken hearts—as they fight to survive.
Rich with historical drama and emotional depth, this is an unforgettable story that will stay with you long after the final page is turned. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 4, 1979
• Born—Newton, Massachesetts, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Florida
• Currently—lives in Orlando, Florida
Kristin Harmel is an American author with more than a dozen novels to her name. Originally from Massachusetts, she gained her first writing experience at the age of 16 as a sports reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, and Tampa Bay All Sports magazine while still attending Northeast High School in St. Petersburg, Florida.
A graduate of the University of Florida, Harmel was a reporter for People magazine starting in 2000. Her work has appeared in dozens of other publications, including Men's Health, Glamour, YM, Teen People, People en Español, Runner's World, American Baby, Every Day With Rachel Ray, and more.
Harmel is the author of more than 10 books, which have been translated into many languages around the world. They include more recently including The Book of Lost Names (2020), The Winemaker’s Wife (2019), The Room on Rue Amelie (2018), and The Sweetness of Forgetting (2012).
Harmel resides in Orlando, Florida with her husband Jason. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/22/2015.)
Book Reviews
Harmel injects new life into a well-worn story… about the struggle to find normalcy amid the horrors of WWII.… [An] emotionally fraught story… [and] celebration of those…who found the courage to face life head-on.
Publishers Weekly
[F]ocusing primarily on the development of a wartime romance rather than on immersive details of life under German occupation…. [Harmel] does create likable if somewhat cliched protagonists… [but] the book's ending feels…emotionally manipulative. —Mara Bandy Fass, Champaign P.L., IL
Library Journal
Harmel writes a poignant novel based loosely on the true story of an American woman who helped on the Comet Line, which rescued hundreds of airmen and soldiers. This compelling story celebrates hope and bravery in the face of evil.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Describe Ruby Henderson’s first encounter with Marcel Benoit. Who or what is responsible for the distance that grows between them during their short marriage?
2. "Why do we have to be Jewish anyhow?" (page 14) How does eleven-year-old Charlotte Dacher experience religious discrimination in the days leading up to the Nazi occupation of France? To what extent do her feelings of alienation facilitate her special bond with the American expatriate Ruby Benoit? What shared qualities make Charlotte and Ruby compatible?
3. Compare and contrast Marcel Benoit’s and Charlotte Dacher’s reactions to the news that Ruby is pregnant. What do their reactions reveal about their characters and their feelings about Ruby?
4. "I don’t understand. You’re working for the Allies? Why didn’t you tell me?"(page 60) Discuss Marcel’s secrecy about his underground Resistance efforts. How reasonable is his decision to keep his work concealed from his wife? Does Ruby’s sense of personal betrayal in light of Marcel’s secret seem justified? Why, or why not?
5. How does Ruby’s baby’s stillbirth impact her relationship with the Dacher family and her sense of personal responsibility for Charlotte? How does the child’s death affect Ruby’s relationship with her husband, Marcel?
6. "I must help. I must take over Marcel’s work on the [escape] line."(page 103) Why does Ruby volunteer to continue her late husband’s work in the immediate aftermath of his death? What does her determination suggest about her love for her adopted country?
7. How does the arrival of the injured RAF pilot Thomas Clarke help Ruby to regain her self-confidence and sense of purpose? What does his willingness to risk discovery in order to help Charlotte’s mother reveal about his nature?
8. "This is France, Madame Benoit. We are French citizens."(page 204) Discuss the roundups taking place in Paris during the German occupation. Why does Monsieur Dacher persist in believing his French citizenship will protect him and his family from being arrested? To what extent does Ruby’s eventual arrest and imprisonment as an American citizen seem surprising?
9. How does Lucien, the young forger, become an important part of Ruby’s extended Resistance family? What explains the intensity of Lucien’s connection with Charlotte?
10. How does Thomas’s return to Paris two years after Ruby helped him to escape the first time confirm the depth of their feelings for each other? Given her unique predicament—serving as a surrogate parent to Charlotte, sheltering wayward Allied pilots, and eking out survival during wartime without any steady income—why does Ruby surrender to Thomas’s affections? How does her eventual pregnancy transform her?
11. "This war, it has changed everything about the world. But our most important lives are still on the inside, aren’t they? What matters is what’s in your heart.” (page 312) Discuss Charlotte’s distinction between inside lives and outside lives. Why might difficult historical and cultural periods such as wartime serve as catalysts for more dramatic interior lives?
12. How would you describe Ravensbrück, the German work camp where Ruby is imprisoned? Why does her pregnancy make Ruby especially vulnerable in the camp? What does the altruism of fellow detainees and German civilians reveal about the potential for goodness in the midst of tremendous evil?
13. To what extent were the deaths of Ruby and Thomas a narrative surprise to you? Why do you think the author chose to end their lives at the same point in the dramatic arc of the novel? How would you describe your reaction to the author’s description of their afterlife reunion in the poppy fields of California?
14. Discuss the depictions of Paris in wartime in the novel. How do the author’s details of the behavior of German soldiers toward the French, of the detention camps, and of the efforts of the Resistance enable you to visualize the novel’s milieu? Which details did you find most compelling? Why?
15. Why do you think the author chose to frame her novel with beginning and ending chapters involving Charlotte and Lucien? Based on ambiguities in the book’s opening chapter, what assumptions did you make about Ruby and Thomas as you read the novel? How did you feel when you discovered the final chapter was about Charlotte and Lucien?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)