Paula McLain’s sweep­ing new nov­el pos­es the ques­tion: what would you sac­ri­fice for your or oth­ers’ free­dom? Span­ning two time­lines in Paris, one in the mid-1600s and the oth­er in the mid-1900s, this book deeply immers­es read­ers in its vibrant setting. 

As the two time­lines inter­weave, read­ers see the city’s expan­sion and shrink­age; we tra­verse the cob­ble­stone streets through the eyes of char­ac­ters des­per­ate for hope, seek­ing refuge, and find­ing home, if only for a moment. Unit­ing the time­lines and this dis­parate group of char­ac­ters, sep­a­rat­ed by cen­turies, are the Paris Cat­a­combs. Run­ning beneath the city and far beyond, these dusty, per­ilous, ancient veins offer shel­ter and suc­cor to those in need. Read­ers watch Éti­enne, a worn-down quar­ry­man in the 1600s, inscribe names and images on the dark walls, which are only glimpsed by char­ac­ters in the 1900s. McLain beau­ti­ful­ly under­scores the unknowa­bil­i­ty of his­to­ry in large and small ways. Whether a sto­ry is lost or nev­er told, the phys­i­cal space retains a breath of his­to­ry — cre­at­ing a haunt­ing effect that is at once melan­cholic and hopeful.

Alou­ette, the pri­ma­ry pro­tag­o­nist of the ear­li­er time­line, is a dyer’s daugh­ter — a young woman on the cusp of illic­it­ly uncov­er­ing a stun­ning shade of scar­let in a world that doesn’t allow for inde­pen­dence, inge­nu­ity, or free-think­ing women. With guilds strict­ly enforc­ing laws and moral codes, Alou­ette must nav­i­gate her desire for her own last­ing lega­cy, roman­tic love, and the preser­va­tion of her fam­i­ly and friends.

In Paris 1939, we meet Kristof — an immi­grant and a ded­i­cat­ed doc­tor who strives to treat his patients who are suf­fer­ing from var­i­ous men­tal health trau­mas. As the Nazi regime tight­ens its hold on the city over the next sev­er­al years, Kristof is con­front­ed by the slow advance­ment of injus­tices to both his patients and the Brod­skys, a fam­i­ly who lives in his apart­ment build­ing and whom he has come to think of as his own. 

In each of these time­lines, char­ac­ters must iden­ti­fy when to act out against injus­tice and when their own val­ues will be com­pro­mised if they do not resist in some way. Alou­ette, mean­ing sky­lark, must trust and find allies in her quest for lib­er­ty and to stand against a sys­tem that refus­es to rec­og­nize her human­i­ty. The Brod­skys, pre­teen Sasha in par­tic­u­lar, find them­selves in ever-nar­row­ing confines. 

McLain’s rich, sen­so­r­i­al lan­guage places read­ers square­ly in these ardu­ous cir­cum­stances, and imbues com­pas­sion for these indi­vid­u­als who find them­selves in the cross-hairs of uncar­ing, cru­el prej­u­dices. The author offers no clear answer to that ini­tial ques­tion of when to act and how, but she evoca­tive­ly reminds us that resis­tance to injus­tice counts how­ev­er and when­ev­er you can act.