Propagandist

by ,

English language

Published 2024 by New Vessel Press.

ISBN:
978-1-954404-26-7
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3 stars (1 review)

In a grand Paris apartment, a young girl attends gatherings regularly organized by her mother. The women talk about beauty secrets and gossip, but the mood grows dark when the past, notably World War Two, comes under coded discussion in hushed tones. Years later, the silent witness to these sessions has become a prominent historian, and with this chilling autobiographical novel she sets out to unmask enigmatic figures in and around her family. Why, she seeks to understand, did they betray their Jewish neighbors and zealously collaborate with the Nazi occupation of France, remaining for decades hence obsessive devotees of that evil lost cause.

2 editions

reviewed Propagandist by Cécile Desprairies

The Propagandist, by Cécile Desprairies

3 stars

If one were to ask, flat out, what Lucie did during the war, she would lie to you. She lied to everyone, even her children, about what she did during the Second World War. Decades later, with Lucie and most of her contemporaries dead and gone, it’s impossible for her daughter, Coline to figure out what really happened. Coline is a stand-in for the author of The Propagandist, by French historian Cécile Desprairies. (Natasha Lehrer does an incredible job with the tricky French grammar of this book.) The Propagandist is a work of history and of autofiction...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration.

Subjects

  • Fiction, historical, general