The Nightingale is a novel written by Kristin Hannah and published in 2015. It tells the story of two sisters in France during World War II, and their struggle to survive and resist the German occupation of France. It was inspired by the story of a Belgian woman, Andrée de Jongh, who helped downed Allied pilots to escape Nazi territory. The book sold well, earning places on several bestseller lists, and was optioned for a screen adaptation by TriStar Pictures in March 2015.
Synopsis
The book uses the frame story literary device; the frame is presented in first-person narration as the remembrances of an elderly woman in 1995, whose name is initially not revealed to the reader. The main action of the book, however, is told in third person, following two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle, who live in France around 1939, on the eve of World War II. The two are estranged from each other and their father, and the book follows the two different paths they take. Vianne, the eldest sister, is a married schoolteacher raising her daughter Sophie in the town of Carriveau. Vianne's husband Antoine is drafted and subsequently captured as a prisoner of war. At home, Vianne copes with the occupation of France by the Germans after the Battle of France, struggling to keep herself and her daughter alive in the face of poor food rations, the billeting of Wehrmacht and SS officers at her home, and the increasing persecution of the Jews in the town. When Vianne's best friend, Rachel, is deported to a concentration camp, she adopts Rachel's three-year-old son, Ari. Soon after, Vianne becomes responsible for hiding nineteen more Jewish children in a nearby abbey's orphanage. Meanwhile, a sadistic SS officer billeting in her home uses sexual violence as a means of control over Vianne. When the war ends, Vianne's husband returns from the POW camp, but she must still cope with the aftermath of the occupation—she is pregnant with as a result of the SS officer's rape, and Ari, whom she has come to love as a son, is taken away to be raised by his cousins in the United States. Isabelle, the younger and more impetuous sister, decides to take an active role in resisting the occupation. After being expelled from finishing school, she travels from Paris to Carriveau on foot, meeting a young rebel named Gaëtan along the way. In Carriveau, she joins the French Resistance and is initially tasked with distributing anti-Nazi propaganda. After moving to a cell in Paris, she develops a plan to help downed Allied airmen escape to the British embassy in neutral Spain, where they can be repatriated. She is successful, and with support from other Resistance operators and the British MI9, this becomes her primary task throughout the war. She earns the code name "Nightingale", and is actively hunted by the Nazis. She is eventually captured, and after her father falsely confesses to being the Nightingale to save her, she is sent to a concentration camp in Germany. She undergoes hellish conditions at the camp but survives long enough to see the end of the war. She makes her way to Vianne, and they reconcile. She reunites with Gaëtan once more before dying from her mistreatment. The book concludes with the elderly narrator, revealed to be Vianne, receiving an invitation to an event in Paris to remember her sister, "The Nightingale". She travels with her son Julien, who is unaware of his family's activities during the war and his true parentage. After the event, Vianne reunites with Ari, and she comes to peace with her memories of the war.
Inspiration
The characters in The Nightingale are not themselves real people, but some of their actions are based on those of real historical figures. Isabelle's escape route over the Pyrenees for downed Allied airmen was based on the Comet line of 24-year-old Andrée de Jongh, a Belgian woman who helped aviators and others escape. Much like Isabelle, de Jongh personally escorted many over the Pyrenees on foot; by the end of the war, she had done so for 118 airmen. Also like Isabelle, de Jongh was captured late in the war and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp rather than executed, as the Nazis disbelieved her assertion that she was herself the organizer of the route. However, de Jongh lived on long after the war, becoming a countess in 1985 and eventually dying in 2007, whereas in the novel Isabelle dies from the camp conditions not long after the war ends. The story of De Jongh also inspired the author to carry further research and found stories during the French Resistance about women who were willing to put their lives and their children at risk in order to shelter Jewish families; this became the inspiration for Vianne's character in the book. Other historical figures mentioned include the World War I nurse Edith Cavell.
Reception
Reviews of the book were generally positive. A review published by Kirkus Reviews said that " tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale...Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner." The novel also sold well: it spent 45 weeks on the NPR Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List and 20 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
Film adaptation
The book was optioned in March 2015 by TriStar Pictures for screen adaptation, with Ann Peacock to write and Elizabeth Cantillon to produce. In August 2016 it was announced that Michelle MacLaren will direct the film. Dakota and Elle Fanning will star, marking the first time the sisters have shared scenes in a film; previously they had played the same character at different ages, in separate scenes. The film is scheduled for release on December 22, 2021.
