Post 1945 Paris the story of Huegette is very disturbing. Just seventeen, orphaned and betrayed by her father, she now finds herself pregnant with a Nazi officers baby and forced by the nuns to give him up for adoption.
Using one of her father’s contacts she gets an entry level job into one of the Parisian studios, climbing the ladder slowly with her business acumen and shrewd and quick thinking. Unimaginable life for a young woman with no family or friends her focus is on finding the Nazi officer who raped her on a whim. Hearing tales that the officer escaped and some stories that he died, she finally meets him at a film award ceremony to seek the revenge she had been pursuing for most of her life. Her relationship with Claude Leduce did not impose much on the story as there was so much going on as well. Leduce seemed secondary.
The emotional intensity in this story is hard to read clinically. Huguette’s child conceived in rape but when he was born she had no choice in the plan for his adoption, and she longed to get him back. This was not to be. Her life was never easy because she was a target by her father’s enemies but Huguette was a very strong, gutsy focussed woman.
Overwhelmingly sad but very real about 1945 to 1947 Paris.
Sent by Soho Press for an unbiased review, courtesy of Netgalley
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