THE PIANO TEACHER OF MONTPARNASSE, bet this'll be a bestseller

THE PIANO TEACHER OF MONTPARNASSE
HEATHER MORRIS
Blackstone Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz returns with a masterful new novel that captures the astonishing bravery of ordinary people in extraordinary times.

In 1942, the Nazis come for a Jewish family living in the Montparnasse area of occupied Paris. In the chaos of their arrest, eleven-year-old Josephine runs to the only person she can her piano teacher, Andrée Levallois, a secret French Resistance operative.

Andrée takes her in as a member of the family, spreading their rations and risking everything to keep her safe. But soon the authorities close in, and both Andrée and Josie are caught in a desperate race to stay alive.

Epic in scope and based on real people and historical events, Heather Morris has written a story of breathtaking beauty, at once gripping, heartbreaking, and uplifting.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: An intimate story of bureacratic bungling saving a child's life because of a quick-thinking mother, a brave family keenly aware of the injustice being done in their country, and how ver simple a miracle truly is. The real woman said of miracles: "I think maybe miracles are just people being kind when they don't have to be. People being brave when it's easier to hide. People sharing what little they have. People lighting candles when it's dark."

That's the heart of the story. It's deeply affecting, all the moreso because it's based on facts. The Holocaust is receding into memory as the few survivors left alive are approaching their 90s. Soon no witnesses will remain. Hence the uptick of scum shouting "fake news" and "hoax" and "it wasn't that bad, those jews are exaggerating" and suchlike idiocy.

This is called "preparing the ground."

We as a species might very well be extinct in the near future, and I'm not speaking geologically, if the "AI" alarmists are correct. I think I'm more worried that they are *not* correct because if we do not all die I fear deeply we're going to see more and more and more genocides modeled on the "Final Solution" as the desensitization and justification scumbags do their evil work. They've never stopped, the Germans weren't the first to think of any of it, and we still pull out a few individual miracles. Like this one. It is a sentimental telling of a story replete with pathos.

It will do your book club proud and, I urgently hope, begin many a conversation about collaborating with evil on a practical basis by being "sick of the rage" or "too tired" to perform even simple actions in support of those actively resisting.

I'm not a fan of this angle of storytelling but I'm damn sure a fan of this story's message, burnished to a high gloss as it is. Shiny things are pretty good mirrors, after all.