Orphan's Tale (Jenoff)

The Orphan's Tale 
Pam Jenoff, 2017
MIRA
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778319818


Summary
A powerful novel of friendship and sacrifice, set in a traveling circus during World War II, by international bestselling author Pam Jenoff.

Seventeen-year-old Noa has been cast out in disgrace after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier during the occupation of her native Holland.

Heartbroken over the loss of the baby she was forced to give up for adoption, she lives above a small German rail station, which she cleans in order to earn her keep.

When Noa discovers a boxcar containing dozens of Jewish infants, unknown children ripped from their parents and headed for a concentration camp, she is reminded of the baby that was taken from her. In a moment that will change the course of her life, she steals one of the babies and flees into the snowy night, where she is rescued by a German circus.

The circus owner offers to teach Noa the flying trapeze act so she can blend in undetected, spurning the resentment of the lead aerialist, Astrid. At first rivals, Noa and Astrid soon forge a powerful bond.

But as the facade that protects them proves increasingly tenuous, Noa and Astrid must decide whether their unlikely friendship is enough to save one another—or if the secrets that burn between them will destroy everything. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
• Education—B.A., George Washington University; M.A., Cambridge University; J.D., University of Pennsylvania
• Currently—lives in Cherry Hill, New Jersey


Pam Jenoff was born in Maryland and raised outside Philadelphia. She attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Cambridge University in England.

Upon receiving her master's in history from Cambridge, she accepted an appointment as Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army. The position provided a unique opportunity to witness and participate in operations at the most senior levels of government, including helping the families of the Pan Am Flight 103 victims secure their memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, observing recovery efforts at the site of the Oklahoma City bombing and attending ceremonies to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of World War II at sites such as Bastogne and Corregidor.

Following her work at the Pentagon, Pam moved to the State Department. In 1996 she was assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Krakow, Poland. It was during this period that Pam developed her expertise in Polish-Jewish relations and the Holocaust. Working on matters such as preservation of Auschwitz and the restitution of Jewish property in Poland, Pam developed close relations with the surviving Jewish community.

Pam left the Foreign Service in 1998 to attend law school and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. She worked for several years as a labor and employment attorney both at a firm and in-house in Philadelphia and now teaches law school at Rutgers.

Pam is the author of The Kommandant's Girl, which was an international bestseller and nominated for a Quill award, as well as The Diplomat's Wife, The Ambassador's Daughter, Almost Home, A Hidden Affair and The Things We Cherished.

She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and three children. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
In prose that is beautiful, ethereal, and poignant, The Orphan's Tale is a novel you won't be able to put down.
Bustle


Against the backdrop of circus life during the war, the author captures the very real terrors faced by both women as they navigate their working and personal relationships and their complicated love lives while striving for normalcy and keeping their secrets safe.
Publishers Weekly


Noa becomes pregnant by a soldier and is compelled to give up both baby and home. Living above a railway station she cleans to pay her bills, she discovers a boxcar full of Jewish infants bound for a concentration camp and steals one, joining a traveling circus to cover her tracks. Over-the-top imagination.
Library Journal


A Jewish trapeze artist and a Dutch unwed mother bond, after much aerial practice, as the circus comes to Nazi-occupied France.… The diction seems too contemporary for the period, and the degree of danger the characters are in is more often summarized than demonstrated. An interesting premise imperfectly executed.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add the author's questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for The Orphan's Tale...then take off on your own:

1. Noa gives her newborn away but remains bereft by the loss and tormented by visions of the child. What do you make of her decision?

2. In her own voice, Noa tells us...

I am unfamiliar with infants and I hold him at arm's length now, like a dangerous animal. But he moves closer, nuzzling against my neck.

Talk about the horror of that scene in the "nursery car" (which is historically accurate). What prompts Noa to save a half-dead?

3.What do you make of Astrid, whose voice alternates with Noa's? How has her tumultuous past shaped her character, especially in terms of her ability to trust others?

4. Talk about the development of the Noa and Astrid's relationship, on the ropes and off. 

5. Author Pam Jenoff conducted considerable research into Jewish circus dynasties, which has enabled her to provide the grainy details of circus life. What do you find interesting or what, in particular, strikes you about life under the tent?

6. Talk about the symbolic use of the circus with its twinkling lights as a foil to the darkness and terror of the Nazi era.

7. What do you make of the novel's other characters—Herr Neuhoff, or Peter, for instance. In what way do they demonstrate courage in the face of danger, brutality, and evil?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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