Thursday, August 4, 2022

The Book of Lost Names, Kristin Harmel

 

Characters

2005

1942

Eva Abrams – age 86

Ben – son

Louis – husband, deceased

 

Otto Kuhn – photo in paper

 

Jenny Fish – Library Assistant Manager

Eva Taube

“Tatus” – father

Faiga – “mamusia”

 

Madame Fontain – neighbor

Simone and Colette – children

 

Madame Barbier – owner of boarding house

 

Peres Clement – pastor, Eglise Saint Alban

 

Remy Charpentier (real name Duchamp)

 

Madame Gremillan – brothel, supported Jewish cause

 

Genevieve Marchand – new forger

 

Joseph Pelletier “Gerard Faucon” – student with Eva, betrayed the resistance cell

 

Enrich – German soldier

 

Madame Travere – hid children

 

False identities:

Colette Fountain

Madame Fountain

 

Marie Charpentier

 

Eva Moreau

Yelena Moreau

 

Lucie Besson – for trip taking children across border

 

 

 

 

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the paperback edition.

1.       Did you understand Eva’s mother’s anger, feelings of betrayal, and her attitude and behavior toward Eva? 

2.       Why was her mother so resistant to the good things that Eva was doing?

3.       Her mother’s last act was to protect Eva.  Do you think she understood what she had been doing and forgave her?

4.       Can Eva forgive herself?   After learning that her mother had been killed, she asked Pere Clement “How will I ever forgive myself if the decisions I’ve made cost my mother her life?” (page 328).

5.       What do you think Eva’s mother would have thought if she had learned that Joseph Pelletier, who she hoped Eva would marry, was the one who betrayed Eva and the others?

6.       Were you surprised that Eva did not tell her husband and son about her previous life?  How do you think they would have reacted?

7.       When Eva was boarding the flight to Germany, she observes a boy who looks like her son as a child.  Eva things, “I’ve always thought that it’s those children – the ones who realize that books are magic – who will have the brightest lives” and “Books change the world, I think” (page 165).  How can books influence the lives of children and change the world?

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