Ashes - Christopher De Vinck

Can I get away with calling this a Holocaust story? I’m not sure. Certainly the Holocaust is featured. And I shall put this book on my Holocaust shelf. But the intent is broader.

With an urgency in the narrative the story propels itself forward and it is as if the reader is trying to escape too. But from what? And from where? Possibly from the inescapable truth that war is an abomination perpetuated by madmen. Here in gentle, neutral Belgium, a country ravaged by World War I, and the evidence of that is still potent and palpable today, De Vinck offers his readers a  glimpse into the madness that Brussels was subjected to when Hitler ignored the country’s neutrality.

But before you conclude that this might be yet another World War II story please pause. For it is much more. It’s a story of friendship. A friendship simple in its purity but complex In the bond that has been forged between two Belgian girls. Typical teenagers? Except that one is Jewish. And the other is the daughter of a Belgian national war hero. Simone Lyon and Hava Daniels, two best friends caught up in the chaos of war. 

We are treated to a full picture of their lives before the unthinkable happens. Secure within their families and secure within their friendship until the day that the Nazis split their world asunder. The two girls begin a journey; a journey for immediate, physical survival,  and the journey of their souls, their selves, those parts that make them people that they are.

The novel is prefaced with a quotation from Anne Frank “Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl? “ it’s very pertinent. Because you get the feeling that Simone and Hava were not so very different from Anne as young girls. And I think the novel strikes a balance between offering historical perspectives on aspects of WWII but never allowing humanity to disappear.

I always think the mark of good historical research in a fiction is where you completely forget that any research has been done you become so enmeshed within the story. It’s only when you finish reading, stop, and reflect back, that you appreciate how thorough the research has been. The reader is transported palpably back to 1939/1940s Brussels, and France.

I guess the title of the book, Ashes, gives a hint of the outcome. I will not be guilty of spoiling by putting it into any kind of words. But it’s moving, though not unexpected. 

Thank you Readers First for a copy of this book.