At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf
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3.7 • 9 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf is the story of a twelve-year-old Parisian Jewish girl in World War II France, living “in hiding” as a Catholic orphan with a family in a small village.
When Danielle Marton’s father is killed during the early days of the German Occupation, her mother sends her to live in a quiet farming town near Limoges in Vichy France. Now called Marie-Jeanne Chantier, Danielle struggles to balance the truth of what’s happened to her family and her country with the lies she must tell to keep herself safe. At first, she’s bitter about being left behind by her mother, and horrified at having to milk the cow and memorize Catholic prayers for church. But as the years pass and the Occupation worsens, Danielle finds it easier to suppress her former life entirely, and Marie-Jeanne becomes less and less of an act. By the time she’s fifteen and there is talk amongst the now divided town of an Allied invasion, not only has Danielle lost the memories of her father’s face and the smell of her mother’s perfume, but her very self, transforming into a strict Catholic and an anti-Semitic, fervent disciple of fascism.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ison follows Rockaway with a chilling psychological portrait of a young Jewish girl hiding in France during WWII. After 12-year-old Danielle's father is shot dead in the street by a German soldier in 1941 for being Jewish, Danielle's mother leaves her in the care of a couple posing as her aunt and uncle in a remote village in southern France. Now known as Marie-Jeanne, she attends the local Catholic church and school and tries to blend in. Terrified of being found out, Marie-Jeanne rehearses her false identity to the minutest detail, failing to realize that in the process she's becoming brainwashed into collaborating with the Germans and forgetting who she really is. Then Lucien Bonnard, a young, handsome, and seemingly sympathetic Vichy official, flirts with the impressionable Marie-Jeanne, and she doesn't realize until later that he's tricked her into giving up her best friend, who likely ends up in Auschwitz. Finely drawn characters and scenes of rural life complement Ison's unique vision and original spin on a familiar set-up. This challenging work stands out among historical fiction of the period.
