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Summary
Summary
Over the course of his career, New York Times bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian has taken readers on a spectacular array of journeys. Midwives brought us to an isolated Vermont farmhouse on an icy winter's night and a home birth gone tragically wrong. The Double Bind perfectly conjured the Roaring Twenties on Long Island--and a young social worker's descent into madness. And Skeletons at the Feast chronicled the last six months of World War Two in Poland and Germany with nail-biting authenticity. As The Washington Post Book World has noted, Bohjalian writes "the sorts of books people stay awake all night to finish."
In his fifteenth book, The Sandcastle Girls , he brings us on a very different kind of journey. This spellbinding tale travels between Aleppo, Syria, in 1915 and Bronxville, New York, in 2012--a sweeping historical love story steeped in the author's Armenian heritage, making it his most personal novel to date.
When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Syria, she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke College, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. The First World War is spreading across Europe, and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide. There, Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. When Armen leaves Aleppo to join the British Army in Egypt, he begins to write Elizabeth letters, and comes to realize that he has fallen in love with the wealthy, young American woman who is so different from the wife he lost.Flash forward to the present, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in suburban New York. Although her grandparents' ornate Pelham home was affectionately nicknamed the "Ottoman Annex," Laura has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought. But when an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura's grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family's history that reveals love, loss--and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.
Author Notes
Chris Bohjalian (born on August 12, 1962 in White Plains, New York) graduated from Amherst College and worked as an account representative for J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York in the mid-1980s. Bohjalian is an American novelist and the author of 15 novels, including the bestsellers Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls. His first novel, A Killing in the Real World, was released in 1988. His other novels include Water Witches, The Law of Similars, Before You Know Kindness, Skeletons at the Feast, and The Night Strangers. Past the Bleachers and Midwives were made into Hallmark Hall of Fame movies and Secrets of Eden was made into a Lifetime Television movie. He won the New England Book Award in 2002. He also contributes to numerous publications including Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest, Boston Globe Sunday Magazine and the Burlington Free Press. Bohjalian's The Guest Room is a New York Times bestseller.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bohjalian's powerful newest (after The Night Strangers) depicts the Armenian genocide and one contemporary novelist's quest to uncover her heritage. In 1915, Bostonian Elizabeth Endicott arrives at a compound in Aleppo, Syria, to provide humanitarian aid to Armenian refugees. A fresh-faced nurse just out of college, Elizabeth has learned only rudimentary Armenian, but soon befriends Armen Petrosian, an engineer who lost his wife and daughter during the chaos of the deportations and mass murders. Though Armen departs for Egypt to fight with the British Army in WWI, their relationship blossoms into an epistolary romance. The atrocities of the genocide and the First World War continue, and Bohjalian spares no detail in his gritty descriptions. Nearly a century later, Laura Petrosian is living in the suburbs of New York City when a friend alerts her to a possible photo of her grandmother being used to advertise an exhibit about "the Slaughter You Know Next to Nothing About." As she explores her past, Laura discovers that what she once considered to be her grandparents' eccentricities-their living room was dubbed the "Ottoman Annex"-speak to a rich and tragic history. Though the action occasionally feels far-off, Bohjalian's storytelling makes this a beautiful, frightening, and unforgettable read. Agent: Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The granddaughter of an Armenian and a Bostonian investigates the Armenian genocide, discovering that her grandmother took a guilty secret to her grave. Laura, the narrator of Bohjalian's latest, is doing genealogical research, attempting to learn more about a fact that has always intrigued her: Her Boston Brahmin grandmother, Elizabeth, and her grandfather, Armen, were brought together by the Armenian genocide. Flash back to 1915. Elizabeth has journeyed to the Syrian city of Aleppo, along with her father, on a mission sponsored by an American relief group, the Friends of Armenia. They have come in an attempt to deliver food and supplies to the survivors of the Armenian massacre. The Turks are using Aleppo as a depot for the straggling remnants of thousands of Armenian women, who have been force-marched through the desert after their men were slaughtered. Elizabeth finds the starved women, naked and emaciated, huddled in a public square, awaiting transports to Der-el-Zor, the desert "relocation camp" where, in reality, their final extermination will take place. Elizabeth takes in two of these refugees, Nevart and an orphan Nevart adopted on the trail, Hatoun, who has been virtually mute since she witnessed the beheading (for sport) of her mother and sisters by Turkish guards. By chance, Elizabeth encounters Armen, an Armenian engineer who has come to Aleppo to search for his wife, Karine. Armen has eluded capture since murdering his former friend, a Turkish official who had reneged on his promise to protect Armen's family. Despairing of Karine's survival--and falling in love with Elizabeth--Armen joins the British Army to fight the Turks. Among archival photos viewed by Laura decades later is one of Karine, who did reach the square mere days after Armen left Aleppo. How narrowly did Karine miss reuniting with Armen, Laura wonders, acknowledging that, but for tragic vagaries of fate, the family that produced her might never have come to be. A gruesome, unforgettable exposition of the still too-little-known facts of the Armenian genocide and its multigenerational consequences.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Between April 1915 and April 1916, one and one-half million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire during WWI. Bohjalian uses this as the backdrop for his new novel. Elizabeth Endicott accompanies her father to Aleppo, Syria, to bring aid to the Armenian deportees. While there, Elizabeth meets Armen Petrosian, an Armenian engineer working for the Germans and searching for his wife and child, though certain they are already dead. In spite of the loss and horror around them, they fall desperately in love. The story is told through the eyes of Laura Petrosian, Elizabeth and Armen's great-granddaughter. After seeing an exhibit of photographs of the Armenian victims, she discovers letters and photos and begins to piece her great-grandparents' story together. Soon the slaughter you know next to nothing about takes over her life, and she makes profound discoveries about her ancestors and herself. This is a powerful and moving story based on real events seldom discussed. It will leave you reeling.--Dickie, Elizabeth Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Bohjalian offers a chilling retelling of the little-known 1915 Turkish genocide of Armenians. The story is told from the perspective of multiple characters, including American good Samaritan Elizabeth Endicott during the genocide and in the present day by an Armenian descendant, Laura Petrosian. Laura explores historical documents and family secrets while the characters from the earlier era reveal the ravages of the slaughter, torture, and extermination of Armenian men, women, and children. In an unmistakable irony, two German soldiers' photographs of the refugees and their suffering help to link the generations and serve as a horrifying precursor to the Nazi Holocaust. Bohjalian spares no details while creating both a love story and a mystery amid the tragedy. Dual readers Cassandra Campbell and Alison Fraser are excellent in voice and pacing. The audio program includes an afterword and author interview. VERDICT Highly recommended as adult fiction and historical artifact. ["Bohjalian powerfully narrates an intricately nuanced romance with a complicated historical event at the forefront. With the centennial of the Armenian genocide fast approaching, this is not to be missed. Simply astounding," read the review of the Doubleday hc, LJ 6/1/12.-Ed.]-Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.