Magpie
As Sarah, Jules, and Genevieve make their way into Paris the lessons Sarah has learned helped aid her in that journey. Talk about how she was able to make her way through the crowd, how people acted around the German soldiers, and how the money from the guard at the camp once again save her.
On page 155 you begin to learn about Edouard’s pain about the events of 1942. How did it make you feel as a reader. Did you have sympathy for him also being a child and having such an experience? Were you pleased to know that Mame didn’t know?
On page 158 Sarah wrestles with hope for her brother while her innermost voice tells her no. As the reader were you having the same struggle at the same time?
Page 160 marks the last time we hear from Sarah. Do you miss her voice as a character? How do you feel about the focus on Julia’s perspective?
On page 162 Edouard tells Julia that a plumber was coming within the week to investigate the smell. If they had found Michael they would have been able to spare Sarah the shock of seeing him in that way. Would that have made it easier and less traumatic for Sarah?
Did Edouard and his father Andre owe Sarah or her descendants anything?
Edouard describes Sarah on page 162 as having “The eyes of a woman in the face of a ten-year-old girl.” And Genevieve on page 196 says that she has a “hardness” to her. Do these descriptions give you concern for Sarah concerning her future?
Through the search for more information on Sarah, Julia and Edouard are able to share something unlike anything else in all the years they have known each other. Do you think the author does this so that Julia can help Edouard heal in a way he hadn’t been able to before. Both his view of his father, and his view of what happened to Sarah?
On page 172 Julia wants to share with Zoe about what she is learning but doesn’t. “Of course I trush you. But there are things I can’t tell you because they are too sad, too difficult. I don’t want you to be hurt by these things, the way they hurt me.” Is this perhaps a statement that Sarah’s parents would have stated if they’d been able to?
On page 174 Sarah goes in for her scheduled abortion on the same day as the round up. Is this a coincidence? Did it take this one last thing for Julia to realize what she wants and her need and willingness to stand up for it?
Why do you think the author “scheduled” Julie to have her “operation” on the anniversary of Vel’ d’Hiv? Did the text describing Julia on that morning strike you with its double meaning? “I could only lie there in my paper dress and paper hat, and wait. Wait to be wheeled into the operating room. Wait to be put to sleep.”
Why did Julia first describe the nurse as having a hearty smile and then after the call he smile became garish? (p180)
Did you find it interesting that Bertrand was going to “exile” Julia, Zoe and the baby to the new apartment so he could come to terms with and/or forget them?
Do you feel like Julia is having her own mid-life crisis – or has this merely become and obsession? Or do you feel like Julia’s doggedness is a reflection of her being a journalist.
If her focus is from being a journalist, why did she miss out on interviewing the guards, police, or railway workers?
Has Julia been a bystander in her own life as many were during the round up? What was it about the decision to keep the baby that gave Julia strength to stick with her decision and not cry in front of Bertrand, as Sarah wouldn’t with the guards?
When Julia and Natalie go to visit her grandfather, Gaspard, and he begins to tell them about Sarah, Julia realizes that Natalie will now remember what she was hearing. Is this how stories like this should be told and remembered? If more people in France did this would the events at the Vel d’Hiv have been so easily forgotten?
Sarah returns to the states looking for Sarah – did you feel the same hope of her finding her as perhaps Sarah felt for her brother?
Did you make the connection between William and his mother not wanting to return to places that had caused them so much hurt?
Should the author have wrapped up the story here?
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