33 Place Brugmann. Brussels, Belgium. “A modest and confident building…brick facade, stone balconies, and thick exterior walls give it the feel of a fortress that’s impervious to anything beyond…two identical apartments on each of three upper floors, an apartment on the ground floor…and the maid’s room at the center of the fifth level at the top…a world unto herself.”

2 April 1939. The residents will soon turn into ghosts and strangers. Daily, the building manager occupying the ground floor apartment, blasts his German radio station. The busybody Agathe, on the third floor, bakes and delivers butter cakes to her neighbor across the hall, a retired soldier from the Belgian Armed Forces. “I know everything because I hear everything-and not because I’m listening.” To avoid Agathe, art dealer Leo Raphael and family must tiptoe in stocking feet down the staircase, in the dead of night, to disappear.

Charlotte Sauvin and Esther Raphael’s fourth floor apartments are architectural mirror images. The seventeen year olds are besties. Esther dreams of being a nurse. Charlotte is a student attending the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. “The art world has gone underground. Everyone is aware of Hitler’s artistic aspirations and his failures and this is why artists who have not already been disappeared by the regime are disappearing themselves.”

Charlotte “feels the world as she sees it…There are no vivid bursts of color. Everything, even her emotion is in gray scale.” Her vision is achromatic. Francois Sauvin, Charlotte’s father, describes the trenches of WWI. “Color is no saving grace. It was a war in sepia-the trenches, the dirt, the uniforms, the faces…” History will repeat itself. “No one sees anything the same way…We stop trying to understand how others see the world,...we lose our compassion, our empathy…”.

Masha, a refugee, is the seamstress living in the attic apartment. She has always been the keeper of Charlotte’s secrets and comforter to the motherless girl. Suddenly, Masha has left. “How I missed [Charlotte] when my life took an unexpected turn and my absences from the building became more and more frequent". Madly in love with Harry, she reluctantly became part of spy and resistance operations.

Leaving art school after French and German students on both sides of the conflict joined up, Charlotte returned home putting her artistic talent to work at a hat shop. The proprietor employed both Jewish and non-Jewish workers. The compassionate boss did not require the Jewish employees to wear their mandated yellow stars during work hours. Suddenly, the building was condemned due to so called architectural concerns. The business was forced to close.

At 33 Place Burgmann, the citizens who were registered to live there would experience many life changing events during the years 1939-1942. “...one must be vigilant in these times. The world is closing in; we're oranges in a juicer. Fate hinges on comings and goings.”

This reader was totally invested in the lives of the building occupants. “Did strolling people walking among the chestnut trees in the Parc de Bruxelles know what was coming? Or were they holding on to a past they didn’t realize was gone and never coming back?”

A highly recommended read of historical fiction

Thank you Grove Atlantic Press and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

'33 Place Brugmann' by Alice Austen is a wonderful and well written debut novel, following the residents of the titular apartment building in Brussels just prior to the beginning of WWII.

The book is delivered over multiple view points of different residents, with more emphasis given to some of characters voices. This allows the reader deeper insight into the characters' motivations and emotions, other viewpoints serve to enrich the broader tapestry of the time. Austen masterfully uses this technique to enhance the complexity of the storyline, but also to allow readers to gain a deep understanding of the zeitgeist of Brussels during WWII. We are given insight into the lives of the heroic, the brave, the antisemetic, and the mundane. Together, these viewpoints create a multifaceted narrative that portrays the breadth of human experience during WWII, from heroism and hate to the quiet endurance of those caught in the crossfire.

The absence of a tidy resolution in this novel serves as a poignant symbol of the enduring impact of WWII. The characters are left navigating a world forever altered by conflict, where closure is a luxury few can afford amidst the ongoing turmoil and rebuilding efforts.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, it was a well constructed reflection on life in wartime. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading historical fiction.

Thanks NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC in exchange for this review!

[I received a review copy from the publisher via Netgalley]

Oh, I really do think this book will be a "love it or hate it" read for many people.

I am in the "love it with caveats" camp, although the major caveat is likely due to this being an uncorrected proof: the formatting for the Kindle ARC I received is quite bad, with oddly formatted wraparound text, occasional single paragraph breaks when two were clearly needed, parts of the novel where the title and author name were randomly interspersed in the text... definitely needs some major fixing there. I hope the publisher is able to fix this soon.

As for the actual story: <B>33 Place Brugmann</B> by Alice Austen follows the residents of a singular apartment building in Brussels on the eve of the Nazi invasion. As the war goes on, characters are forced to deal with the reality of living in an occupied country or, in some cases, the reality of being forced to flee said country.

What does one become, when the world changes so drastically? Can a community maintain itself in the face of constantly ripping seams? How do people manage--or rather, do they manage at all?

Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different resident of 33 Place Brugmann, giving the book an ensemble feel. However, there is a strong emphasis on a handful of residents, whose stories propel the narrative forward while other characters are lurking--and acting, in some cases--in the background.

The book feels, and I don't know how else to describe this so I don't know if this makes sense to anyone but myself, like it came from a European author rather than an American one. (And I say this with the disclaimer that of course, there are numerous American-written WW2 novels that also carry these traits.)

Here, the characters are all flawed and left wanting. The characters are human--incomplete, messy, filled with regrets, hopes, exhaustion, half-realized dreams. The story does not end tidily or particularly happily, reflecting the reality of so many real people's stories in WW2. We do not get a bow wrapping up what we'd love to know. There are betrayals and antisemitic characters and boring mundane realities within a country at war.

There is also a sense of the bizarre: visions (or are they?) that occur in the night, perhaps brought on by something otherworldly--or perhaps the effects of dwindling rations, illness, and stress. Like the rest of the novel, this vague supernatural element feels blunted, presented with the same forthright themes as frustrations of getting rations, suspecting betrayals in spy rings, and nosy neighbors in times of peril.

Overall, I would recommend giving <B>33 Place Brugmann</B> a read if you are looking for a WW2 novel that doesn't feel like a Hollywood epic, but something that reflects the frustrating, gritty, confusing reality of life during such times.

But I would also, perhaps, recommend waiting for the official published version rather than seeking out an advanced copy, as presumably the major formatting issue will be fixed before the book is published next March.

I really enjoyed the story. I think most readers of literary fiction will also enjoy it and I would recommend it. Pick this one up on publication day. You won’t be sorry.