From the Publisher
Anne Sebba has the nearly miraculous gift of combining the vivid intimacy of the lives of women during The Occupation with the history of the time. This is a remarkable book.”
—Edmund de Waal, New York Times bestselling author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes
“As Anne Sebba makes clear in her fascinating book Les Parisiennes, there was no Hollywood clarity about life in the city of light….To read this book is to admire female bravery and resilience, but also to understand why the scars left by the Second World War still run so deep…. Sebba skilfully weaves the history of 1940’s Paris through the remarkable stories of women from all walks of life….Wonderful.”
—The Times of London, "Pick of the Week"
“Fascinating . . . Anna Sebba knows everything about Paris during the war and she relates in Les Parisiennes the end of all the whispered stories I’ve been hearing all my life. She understands everything about the chic, loathsome collaborators and the Holocaust victims, and their stories are told in an irresistible narrative flood.”
—Edmund White, bestselling author of Our Young Man
On That Woman
“A solid biography of the woman who became the King of England's excuse for abdicating his throne . . . depicts Wallis as a woman who sought power and privilege but never expected the damage she wrought or the wrath she engendered.” —The New York Times
“That Woman goes a long way in explaining how a not-quite-divorced, not-quite-beautiful American bedazzled a king out of his kingdom.” —Vogue
“Salacious and consuming, this well-researched biography will appeal to readers interested in British political and women's history.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Smart, eloquent, and unafraid to go beyond the myth of the duchess of Windsor.” —Publishers Weekly
“Brought to brilliant light in this responsible, respectful biography.” —Booklist on Jennie Churchill
“A rigorously objective book… Fascinating.” —Financial Times on Mother Teresa
Kirkus Review
2016-07-31
An extensively researched cultural history of Paris from 1939 to 1949, covering events leading to the fall of Paris, its occupation by the Nazis, and the early postwar years.Journalist Sebba (That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, 2012, etc.), a former Reuters foreign correspondent, pored over memoirs, diaries, and letters, read books, watched films, handled artifacts, and interviewed women who lived through the events to understand how the war changed the lives of Parisiennes and how they adjusted to loss, fear, and hunger under occupation. Women were forced to make difficult choices, and the author convincingly demonstrates that this was a complicated business, that their options were limited as they struggled to live alongside their male Nazi occupiers and care for their families in the absence of men, many of whom were serving overseas or were prisoners of war. The stories show the good and bad sides of human nature as women resisted, suffered, and died or collaborated and flourished. In postwar Paris, female collaborators were publicly shamed, but the work of women resistors often went unrecognized because they were not part of an official organization. Sebba brings their stories to light and also highlights women who made less-than-honorable compromises. She seems to have a fondness for the socially prominent, making her vulnerable to the charge of name-dropping, and she gratuitously brings in big names in the fashion world—e.g., Christian Dior gets space because his sister was a member of the resistance. Since the book is divided into chapters that cover one year, individuals whose stories begin in an early year may not appear again for several years, making their narratives hard to follow. The back-of-the book list of the cast of characters is an essential guide for befuddled readers. Despite the gossipy bits, the research is impressive, and Sebba offers balance to the plethora of war histories featuring the roles of men. The book has ample material for lively discussion in women’s studies classes.
