Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks

Brief Summary: Hannah is an American graduate student studying history and writing a book chapter on women in Paris during the German Occupation. Tarrique is a teenage runaway to Paris looking for x. This unlikely duo forms a friendship that aides them in their personal journeys.

Highlights: By far the most interesting aspect was Hannah’s research on the women. I loved her methodology and then how she tracked down surviving women in person. I didn’t know there was a concentration camp in France and I enjoyed her visit there. Unfortunately, Terrique’s journey was far less interesting and I didn’t find his teenage musings all that interesting. The frirendship that develops between them is unlikely and heartwarming.

Explanation of Rating: 3/5: unfortunately, I had to listen to this audiobook twice to fully appreciate the plot because it was hard to keep my attention.

Thank you to Net Galley and the Publisher for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review

Paris Echo tells the story of American historian Hannah, who is researching the lives of women in occupied Paris, and Tariq, a Moroccan teenager who has come to Paris against his father's wishes for adventure and romance. As a resident of Paris, I loved the way this novel takes down the cliches of Paris. I found myself reading parts aloud to my husband, as Faulks captures so many of the truths about Paris--both humorous and dark--that are often glossed over.

One of Hannah's subjects of study is a woman who informed on Resistance fighters during the Nazi occupation. Although Hannah tries her best to understand the underpinnings of the mass collaboration that France barely acknowledges, her meeting with the still-living elderly subject forces her to face the reality of hatred and anti-Semitism that pervaded the occupation years in Paris. Tariq's own friendship with a man who has him carry money to a shady, probably terrorist organization underscores the complexity and nuances of choices thoughtlessly made.

What intrigued me most about this novel was the way both Hannah and Tariq at moments slip through time. It isn't a historical novel, but a novel steeped in history, and it isn't a fantasy novel, but it is a novel in which unexplained departures from reality as we know it take one, beautifully, by surprise.

Additional note: My enjoyment of this book was heightened by the fact that I live in Paris, and the novel gave me a glimpse into places I know in passing, as well as the intricacies of a culture in which I am very much an outsider. The collision of past and present makes for intriguing reading. I started this as an audiobook and gave up because it was difficult to understand the narration. I'm grateful for the digital copy from Netgalley, as I think this book is more fully experienced on the page.

PARIS ECHO

I liked this book. Hannah, a 30 something American woman researching the role of women during WWII, and Tajik, a 19 year old Moroccan young man searching for information on his Parisian mother, share an apartment through odd circumstances in Paris. Both learn a lot about the history of France and about themselves.

Not a lot of answers here, more a free flow of events. But it sure feels like Paris comes alive through this eclectically nice story. A lot of good historical information in here.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Sebastian Faulks, and Henry Holt & Company for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I tied to get into this book and did finish it, but it took a long time because I just couldn't get into the plot. The only bright spots for me was the WWII research. The rest of the book frustrated me.

Thanks to Henry Holt and Co. and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Hannah has moved to Paris to do some research on WWII. Paris has not been very kind to her in the past. She takes in Tariq, totally by accident. Tariq is a refugee determined to make it in Paris. Hannah and Tariq become strange friends but it works for them. Their connection is unique and enjoyable.

I love the matter of fact tone of this author. There is no sugar-coating, no over-dramatizing. It just is. However, the story is filled with mundane, everyday activities. This I could do without. It also repeats itself in several places. But, I could not stop reading. I enjoyed the characters and their struggles. Especially Hannah. She discovers something during her research and it totally knocks her for a loop! This is a game changer in this story.

I enjoy historical remembrance stories. This book did not have as many as I like, but it made up for it in historical references. I learned a lot in this read about the struggles many women had during the occupation of France. Not sure I have every really given that much thought. I love it when an author gives me a different insight.

I received this novel from Henry Holt for a honest review.

I feel like Paris Echo doesn't know what kind of a book it wants to be, so it is a few of them bound together: literary fiction and historical fiction with a sprinkle of self-discovery and ghosts. Our main characters are Hannah, a 30-something researching her contribution to a history book, and Tariq, a nineteen-year-old who decided to take a break from his native Morocco. Both of them have issues they're working on though they don't know it until they've already worked things out. I didn't find either character to be particularly believable or interesting but the writing style is different from what I usually read - that is what kept reading Paris Echo interesting for me. Ultimately it was an enjoyable read but this probably won't be a book I'll remember for very long.

Hannah is an American doing research in Paris about the experiences of women during the occupation in France during WWII. Tariq has come to Paris from Tangier, a young man who knows little of the world who wants to understand himself better and perhaps learn what happened to his French-born mother. Hannah and Tariq meet through a young woman and the reader follows each of them as they learn more about France - in present and its past. Hannah struggles with her own past, remembering the Russian lover who left her emotionally damaged when she lived in Paris a decade earlier. Unable to move forward and unable to process her past, Hannah becomes emotionally drained by the stories of the women she researches. Tariq, meanwhile, negotiates Paris, realizing he knows little about the city around him and its history, yet growing as a young man coming of age.

I wanted to love this book but was left feeling uninspired by it, The stories of the women in occupied France were interesting and I frankly wanted them to be the centerpiece of the book. Hannah's emotional issues were frankly not well developed and only well into the book does Tariq become more sympathetic and interesting. Faulks seems to have struggled with deciding what this book was addressing - and although there are parallels among the women of the past and Hannah and Tariq in the present, it doesn't feel cohesive or powerful.

Thank you to NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Surprisingly luring novel "Paris Echo" by Sebastian Faulks. Besides our main characters, I've enjoyed the stories of women that were captured inside Paris during German Occupation.

American historian/researcher Hannah and Moroccan teenager and runaway Tariq find themselves in an interesting living situation. The young kid literally crashes at Hannah's apartment. But as time goes by, they find things they can help and teach each other and eventually become friends.

Both Hannah and Tariq arrived into a city of lights for different reasons. Tariq is searching for the history of his mother that past away when he was at a very young age. During his stay in the city, Tariq comes across a few people, including Hannah, who introduces him to French and Moroccan history. Besides history, Tariq is enjoying the city from a different perspective. Parisian culture, every street corner and metro station seems specifically enchanting to him.

And while Tariq is exploring the city, and stalking a beautiful stranger, Hannah is trying to complete her research she was sent to Paris to do. However, while doing the research of other women's past, Hannah is trying to escape her own. Will she be able to release herself from betrayal in the same city that broke her spirit in the first place?

"Paris Echo" is a wonderful novel with a phenomenal set of divergent characters. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I actually enjoyed this book. Thank you, Sebastian Faulks, for an amazing story and NetGalley and Hutchinson publisher for a free copy of this book.

I couldn't really connect with the characters and the story didn't ring true to me. The book is well-written but it just didn't engage me like I expected. I give it 3 stars for the writing.

I’m right down the middle on this one, so I’m giving it three stars. There were certainly things I liked about it, but there were some things that didn’t work for me. The narrative alternates between two characters who are very different, yet alike in some ways. Their paths cross in Paris while they are on journeys of self discovery and a friendship evolves. While they do connect, I had a problem connecting with them and felt removed from them for some reason I find difficult to pinpoint. Hannah returns to Paris after ten years to research “the experience of women in Paris under the German Occupation “. She seems to have lost her way, still carrying the hurt of a failed, past relationship when she was in Paris as a student ten years previous, so much so that she hasn’t been with another man in the last ten years. Tariq ,19 year old from Morocco goes to Paris trying to find his way. He is unhappy at school, unhappy at home and looking for something- perhaps to learn more about his French born mother who died when he was ten.

On his way Tariq meets Sandrine, another young person seeking something else in her life and connects with her. How Hannah connects with them felt unrealistic. Call me cynical, but I found it hard to believe that a woman on her own in a foreign country would bring a strange, disheveled, dirty looking sick girl back to her apartment. I found it equally unrealistic, again call me cynical, that one would take in this girl’s friend as a boarder without knowing much about him. Having said that Hannah and Tariq seems to find some understanding in each other. The stories of Juliette and Mathilde reflecting the past during the German occupation WWII were for me the best part of the book and perhaps the most profound part. Reflections on the history of Algeria and France were also enlightening. Fans of Sebastian Faulks may find more here than I did.


I received an advanced copy of this book from Henry Holt and Company through NetGalley.

Rating: 3 stars (Rounded up from 2.5)

This book wasn’t what I expected from Sebastian Faulks. It was a bit all over the board as to what type of genre it's meant to be. There is some contemporary fiction, historical fiction, and magical realism in this book. These genres sometimes worked well together, but sometimes they were dissonant, and it took me a bit of work to figure out what was going on.

In modern-day Paris, the stories of Hannah; an American post-doctoral researcher, and Tariq; a nineteen year-old Moroccan teenager, converge in Paris. Hannah is in Paris to research the lives of women who lived in Paris under the German Occupation during WWII. Tariq has run away from home, and traveled to Paris with a vague idea of finding out more about his dead mother. Through happenstance, Hannah allows Tariq (who she does not know) to stay in the spare room in her apartment. Threads of Tariq’s story, Hannah’s story and Hannah’s research about the almost forgotten Parisian women wind their way throughout the book. At some points, Tariq even interacts with a woman from the 1940’s.

There were illustrative stories about the horrible way that the French treated the Algerians during, and after their colonization of that country. There was historical information provided about some of the atrocities of the German Occupation of France, and the difficult position some Parisian women found themselves in before and after the war because of their relationships with the Germans. The Metro in Paris is actually a pretty big character in this story, as Tariq uses this as his method to travel throughout the city, and Hannah explains the historical significance of many of the Metro stop names to him.

All in all, it seemed like a bit of a mish-mash to me. While I learned something, considering the subject matter, the lessons turned out to be a bit dry for me.

‘Thank-You’ to NetGalley; the publisher, Henry Holt & Co; and the author, Sebastian Faulks; for providing a free e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Hannah is an American historian, and she’s studying World War II in Paris (sounds like something I’d love to do!). She harbors some resentment towards the City of Lights due to something in her past when she was younger.

Hannah meets Tariq, a Moroccan teenager, who sees Paris as a land of opportunity in stark contrast to his own he is fleeing. In need of a place to stay, he ends up boarding with Hannah. Both Hannah and Tariq are very much outsiders to the city.

Tariq begins to see Paris in a different, more complicated light, and at the same time, Hannah discovers something in her research that shakes her to her very core.

With themes of inequity and corruption versus dreams and seeking freedom, Paris Echo is a complex, beautifully-written, engaging novel of friendship and second chances. Hannah and Tariq form a bond that is healing for each of them. Hannah has to heal from her past, and Tariq has to heal for his future. The atmosphere is rich and absorbing, and the story is as well with its multiple layers.

Thank you to Henry Holt and Company for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

An in-depth look at two lives separated by a full generation. I think it is a beautiful view of Parisian lifestyle.

This is lighter and less dramatic than Faulks’ rather grim but magnificent magnum opus “Birdsong”, about a Brit’s life shaped by fighting in the trenches of World War 1. Here we get a tale of two characters recently come to Paris, Hannah, a serious American of about 30 who is studying the lives of women during the German Occupation during World War 2, and Tariq, a Moroccan youth of 19, seeking adventure and possibly some knowledge of the life of his half-French mother and French grandparents. She spends her time reviewing audio recordings of women about their experiences during the war and tracking down and interviewing a few very aged survivors. He ends up a housemate in her flat in a classy neighborhood while working in a fast food joint in a lower class sector of Saint-Denis, where many Arab and Middle Eastern immigrants and refugees reside. They help each other in surprising and touching ways, facilitating each other’s growth and evolution, learning much about the intersection of the personal and the historical and the lasting impact of the past on the present.

The alternating first persona narration of these two ends up making the cityscape of Paris a key character in itself. For Hannah, the voices from the past speak of homes, routes to work, cafes, and cabarets, and sites of Nazi or Resistance activities, places which begin to come alive for her when she can visit those places and see photos. Offices and jails of the SS or Gestapo send out dark vibrations. She feels haunted as if by ghosts upon visiting the bicycle racetrack where the Vichy government dumped 13,000 Jews in unspeakable conditions in 1942 and the complex in the Drancy suburb where they were then held before final shipment to death camps like Auschwitz or Ravensbruck.

Hannah homes in on two historical women, Juliette, a clothing store worker who dated a German officer with family permission, and Mathilde, a waitress who favored accommodating the victors but took up a love affair with a leader in the Resistance. True Resistance heroines are hard for Hannah to find records for because of necessary secrecy and because so many were captured and killed in the camps. Her sense that both active resistance and active collaboration were not that common is supported by her special English friend from her past stay in France in a semester abroad in school, Julian. This literature scholar and teacher argues that only about 3% of the French people were active in these extreme roles. The vast majority maintained a “wait and see” attitude and tended to support anything that could shorten the war. Hannah, with Tariq’s help in translation, asks the survivor Mathilde why she chose to stay in Paris and did nothing to counter the German invaders:

<i>We didn’t have a country manor house! We were peasants.
…I didn’t mind them. I felt sorry for some of the young ones. …It was the English we didn’t like.
Because they kept the war dragging on. And the Jews.
When you’re poor you just do what you have to do. You only think about the factory work. And when you might get some time off. But mostly we were thinking about food.</i>
For Tariq, all the sights and sensations of the city were new and wonderful in their diversity, the grand or peculiar names of all the Metro stops and streets a spur to his imagination. When told of the history or real figures behind the names, he begins to build knowledge and hunger for more, despite starting with a total disinterest in “stuff that happened before you were even born.” He is so loveable when he asks in ignorance: “Don’t tell me there was a painter named Auguste Bastille.” But the history infusions soon start to gain personal significance in his journeys with an old veteran, Victor Hugo, whom he helps with his puppetry shows on the Metro and in parks. Like his namesake, Victor has a tragic and romantic outlook on the history of France in North Africa, which he renders for Tariq like a master storyteller:

<i>“Of course my own country once hoped to be a Mussleman power. The idea was to enlighten the Arab world, to bring it science, law, the rights of man, then from an alliance with them against a common enemy.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Americans.”
“…As a result of the wars, the countries of the Maghreb, the men of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia—people who once loved us, or at least alongside us—came to distrust France as much as they despised the other Europeans. They brought god into politics. And that was the end for France.
After that, there was only massacre, torture, and despair. The end of our oriental dream.</i>

Thus, Tariq could begin to appreciate why his Algerian friend and co-worker at the fried chicken café hates the French so much. His father had been loyal to the French in Algeria, left to imprisonment and torture after they lost the war, and led his family to neglect in the slums of Paris after immigration there with his family.

Tariq is also affected greatly upon Hugo’s vivid recounting of the Pont Saint-Michel as the bridge from which in 1961 hundreds of Algerians captured at a street protest were thrown, hands tied or already dead, to conceal how they had beaten or killed by the police after their capture at a large street protest. The man responsible, Papon, was called in for the job because he was so effective in brutally suppressing rebellion in Algeria and in the infamous rounding up Jews at the bicycle stadium back in 1942. Tariq can’t help wondering if his own mother was a witness or his grandparents killed in this atrocity:

<i>It wasn’t their ghostly absence that I felt, as I sat by the river, staring into the silent water. What haunted me was the sense that their secrets had left a permanent void in my life.</i>

Although Hannah had already been educated against the idea of history “as a sort of pageant” from a different world, she gains a more personal sense of how “history was neither ‘past’ nor ‘other’ but an extension of the present to which all people, whether they know it or not, are attached”:

<i>I was excited by all this. I believed in the impact of previous existences on every day I was alive; in more excited moments I came to think that the membrane of death was semi-permeable. This belief was what gave a sense of purpose to my work.</i>

She begins to understand how the devastation of World War 1 and the cost of millions of deaths and 1.5 million disabled damaged the spirit and expectations of the French people and made them less willing to engage to extreme sacrifices against their invaders. Mathilde’s miserable childhood with her one-legged veteran father, who worked in a slaughterhouse, comes to seem consistent with her choice of a passive approach with respect to the Nazis and, ultimately, her betrayal of her Resistance lover out of jealousy. Hannah finds parallels in her own damage by abandonment of a lover in her previous stay in Paris and shame in her vulnerability as a basis for choosing to no longer take risks to seek love. I love the eerie power of her illusion of a connection with the past when she is haunted by the smell of horses at a visit the slaughterhouse where Mathilde’s father worked, though closed for more than 50 years:

<i> Could there be such a thing as temporal synesthesia—a condition in which you confused not two senses, like sight and smell, but in which different eras became merged? Could it be that my brain, made hyperactive by the shortcomings of the present, had actually experienced, through smell, the richer past?</i>

I was surprised and pleased how Faulks led me through the rather mundane activities of three two visitors to France and ended up reaching for rather profound insights on the connection of the personal history to the larger drama of the historical events of war. I didn’t reach the highest level in my rating because of his tendency to spell out his messages and themes and because of a sense that they weren’t quite earned in their own right from the characters’ experiences. I liked best the ways that the two characters complemented and facilitated each other’s journey, with Hannah so wise with knowledge but stunted in her heart and Tariq naïve to history but so noble in his hunt for love and so perceptive about people’s hidden feelings.

This book was provided for review by the published through the Netgalley program

Published by Henry Holt and Co. on November 6, 2018

Tariq Zafar lives in Morocco but, at the age of 19, quits college in defiance of his widowed father, smuggles himself into France in the back of a truck, and hitchhikes to Paris, where his Algerian-French mother grew up. A streetwise young woman named Sandrine joins him for part of the trip and hangs out with him in Paris before wandering out of the story.

Hannah, an American in her early 30s, is making her second trip to Paris. She is turning her postgraduate thesis into a book chapter on French women in occupied Paris. She hopes her stay in Paris will be one of “pure thought,” but the reader knows that isn’t likely.

Hannah encounters Sandrine and, through her, meets Tariq. Hannah and Tariq become friends of a sort, but their greater connection comes from the photograph of a woman they see in a book, a woman they name Clémence. When Tariq begins to encounter Clémence in person, the encounters seem too surreal to be real. I’m actually not sure what to make of those scenes; perhaps more astute readers can educate me.

Tariq’s fantasies of the city do not match the reality it offers to a penniless Moroccan, but over the course of the novel, Tariq’s observations of diverse Parisians teach him that there are many ways of living. His experiences (both positive and negative) encourage him to think about the future that might be best for him. When Tariq ponders whether he should return to Morocco, he can make that decision as someone who has gained confidence, a bit of worldliness, and a sense of history, so in that sense Paris Echo is a coming of age novel.

Hannah has already come of age, but it is never too late to grow, and Hannah does that by the novel’s end. Her investigation of the past introduces her to the French resistance and the much larger population of French collaborationists, but her focus is on ordinary women who simply wanted to survive the occupation, sometimes by cozying up to German soldiers, sometimes by avoiding them. Hannah identifies with a woman named Mathilde as she listens to her recorded history, until Mathilde admits to having taken an act of revenge after being betrayed by her boyfriend. She also feels sympathy for a woman named Juliette, who befriended a German at a time when most Parisians supported Germany and hated the British, but was later denounced as a collaborator after Parisians switched their allegiance following France’s liberation.

Much of Hannah’s intellectual story is about remembering the past (rather than ignoring it or, worse, altering history to make it more comforting) and understanding the connection between the past and the present. But as much as Hannah wants to live a life of pure thought in Paris, her story parallels Tariq’s in her realization that there are many ways to live. Hannah must decide whether emotion should balance thought as she chooses her future.

Sebastian Faulk’s prose is notable for its fluid intelligence. The plot of Paris Echo can be seen as the two separate stories of Hannah and Tariq, stories that happen to intersect but that only influence each other in limited ways. Tariq’s story appealed to me more than Hannah’s, perhaps because the outcome of Hannah’s story is predictable, but Hannah’s research into the ways that Parisian women lived during the German occupation of Paris gives her story added depth. Paris Echo created too little dramatic tension to trigger my “wow” response, but the story succeeds on multiple levels, making it easy to recommend as a rewarding investment of a reader’s time.

RECOMMENDED

"A perceptual disturbance in the brain, some sort of time lag. You know, like déjà vu, when things have just gone out of sync for a moment.”

Hannah, Julian and Tariq all have their moments of Echo, perhaps Tariq most of all.

What a wonderful book. It is full of the essence, the smells and touch of Paris and Tangier. History is not behind us, but within us.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to Netgalley and Henry Holt Co. for this ARC.

This was my first Faulks book and won't be my last. I loved the characters, even the character of Paris itself. Some of the history was new to me, especially the details about colonialism in Algeria and Morocco. I liked that he went (far) beyond the areas of Paris I've learned about before, including information on immigrants and their experiences in France. The back and forth of the chapter POVs kept it interesting and Hannah's interviewees were fascinating. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a glimpse of the reality of modern France, not the rose-colored Edith Piaf/Champs Elysees version.

The neighborhoods of Paris -as accessed by the Metro - are the catalysts for the stories of the two protagonists, Hannah and Tariq. With origins separated by an ocean and a sea as well as more than a decade in age, they are kindred souls searching for themselves and a human connection in the world we all inhabit. Paris - like all great cities - manages to both shelter and expose both of them from/to whatever they choose to experience. This is a coming of age tale for the new millennium where being 20 or being 30 does not result in being ready to commit to a certain life. With the extension of the human lifetime comes the luxury - or agony - of extended time to choose among increasingly numerous paths. What remains constant, as long as humanity retains its integrity, is the unquestionable quest for the connection to another living soul.
A necessary postscript:: The author giftedly renders a multi-dimensional vision of Paris which is further enhanced for any reader who has been fortunate enough to have spent time in that special city.

Paris Echo is, hands down, one of the best books I've read this year. The story intertwines the lives of three characters - Tariq, a young man from Tangier who goes to Paris to learn more about his French mother, Hannah, the vulnerable American middle-aged academic who is doing historical research on women during the Nazi occupation of Paris, and Julian, Hannah's now divorced ex-professor, who is trying to show Hannah how much he cares, even as she steels herself in armor to protect herself after a long-ago failed love affair in Paris. Weaving in and out of their lives are the women from the past that Hannah is studying, and even Victor Hugo, one of France's greatest writers. Sebastian Faulks pulls this off cleverly, seamlessly, and compassionately,. He conveys a razor sharp sense of location by anchoring his chapters in the major metro stops in Paris. Past and present are vivid and precise. The context of history is easily brought back to the present. I recommend this book for all lovers of good fiction.

I've read quite a few Sebastian Faulks novels and have enjoyed each and every one. They all have a similar feel, of longing, of loss. They are full of ghosts. Paris Echo is no different.

Hannah is a postdoctoral researched, living in Paris. She walks the streets, remembering a time ten years prior, where she was in love and looking at Paris with a different set of eyes. Hannah listens to women who were present during German Occupation, opening her eyes to the mystery of life in the city that she loves. Enter Tariq, a runaway teenage. Tariq is innocent and every corner holds a new experience.

As with all Faulks novels, there is humor and mystery. Paris Echo fell a little flat for me, I think because I have loved some of his others novels so much. I didn't really like Tariq, he was vain and kind of annoying...as teenagers usually are. ;) Still, this has the Faulks language and writing that I do love.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.