“We cannot change who we are. Sooner or later we will all have to face ourselves.”
The Orphan’s Tale by Pam Jenoff is simple at first, then turns into so much more than one girl trying to survive in a harrowing war. Young Noa falls pregnant from a Nazi soldier, but is then forced to give up her child shortly after its birth. Cast out by her family, she eventually stumbles upon a boxcar full of children taken from their families. A heartbreaking piece of not just fiction, but elements of real history, as I have since found out.
In an instant, she rescues one of them and begins to run from just about everyone and everything, keeping secrets close to her chest even when she joins with a German circus and begins to train as an aerialist with Astrid, a Jewish woman also on the run from her former life.
While I do not count out any one genre, I will read anything if it intrigues me in even the slightest manner, one of the genres I am currently most attracted to is historical fiction. Much of this, I find, is based around World War 2. Thought, it is not so much focused on the fighting as it is on people attempting to survive, whether it be on the run, in concentration camps, or tucked away in countries like England.
This is definitely a take I have not seen before, in that I had not heard of a circus actually hiding some Jewish people as they travelled through Germany and France. I certainly enjoyed the perspective, since it provided hope regarding some good people in what seemed like an insurmountable sea of evil.
But I was not hooked by The Orphan’s Tale, not at first. The perspective shifts and at times does not appear to be quite linear, though that may also be a by-product of the shifting perspectives and the inherent complexity it brings to the plot. I have always said books with shifting perspectives are immediately harder to follow and require a lot more effort on the author’s part to make everything clear to the reader.
There were compelling scenes in the beginning and scattered throughout the middle, but I think quite a bit of the impact is lost with the shifts in perspective, the downtime, et cetera. I’m not sure what I would change, but there certainly is still work to be done with this text, no doubt about it.
Having said all of that, the ending of the book is what really got me and is why I would still recommend this book to fans of historical fiction, with an emphasis on those interested in World War 2. It brings elements together and to a close in a fascinating and unexpected fashion. I would not have guessed this ending, but it is a great one and I do not think I would change it.
So, I guess my opinion stands as this: read The Orphan’s Tale for the way in which the story is wrapped up, but be wary of the middle and take pains to keep focused on the plots and make sure they are straight in your mind. You do not want to find yourself lost.
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Title: The Orphan’s Tale
Author: Pam Jenoff
Publisher: Mira Books
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