The Sandcastle Girls
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4.0 • 6 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A haunting love story set during the First World War amidst the horrors of the Armenian Genocide
One woman's journey into her family's past reveals a shocking story that has never been told.
1915, Aleppo, Syria.When Elizabeth Endicott steps off the boat from Boston, armed only with a crash course in nursing, nothing could have prepared her for the atrocities she is about to face. For Aleppo is the arrival point for the hundreds of thousands of Armenians who have been forced to march out of Turkey and through the desert to die.
There Elizabeth gets to know Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter in the Genocide. When Armen travels to Egypt to join the British army, he begins to write to Elizabeth, and slowly realizes that, unless he can find his way back to her, he risks becoming lost forever.
Present day, New York.Laura Petrosian has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought until an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a photo of Laura's grandmother advertising a museum exhibition. As Laura embarks on a journey back through her family's history she'll find a tale of love, loss - and the hidden story of a nation in mourning.
'Chris Bohjalian is at his very finest in this searing story of love and war. I was mesmerized from page one. Bravo!' Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife
'The Sandcastle Girlsis deft, layered, eye-opening, and riveting. I was deeply moved." Wally Lamb, author of The Hour I First Believed
'Powerful . . . Bohjalian's storytelling makes this a beautiful, frightening, and unforgettable read' Publishers' Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bohjalian's powerful newest (after The Night Strangers) depicts the Armenian genocide and one contemporary novelist's quest to uncover her heritage. In 1915, Bostonian Elizabeth Endicott arrives at a compound in Aleppo, Syria, to provide humanitarian aid to Armenian refugees. A fresh-faced nurse just out of college, Elizabeth has learned only rudimentary Armenian, but soon befriends Armen Petrosian, an engineer who lost his wife and daughter during the chaos of the deportations and mass murders. Though Armen departs for Egypt to fight with the British Army in WWI, their relationship blossoms into an epistolary romance. The atrocities of the genocide and the First World War continue, and Bohjalian spares no detail in his gritty descriptions. Nearly a century later, Laura Petrosian is living in the suburbs of New York City when a friend alerts her to a possible photo of her grandmother being used to advertise an exhibit about "the Slaughter You Know Next to Nothing About." As she explores her past, Laura discovers that what she once considered to be her grandparents' eccentricities their living room was dubbed the "Ottoman Annex" speak to a rich and tragic history. Though the action occasionally feels far-off, Bohjalian's storytelling makes this a beautiful, frightening, and unforgettable read.
