Critics' Opinion:
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Published Feb 2021
432 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
In the spirit of We Were the Lucky Ones and We Must Be Brave, a heartbreaking World War II novel of one mother's impossible choice, and her search for her daughter against the odds.
As a Russian Jewish émigré to France, Vera's wealth cannot protect her or her four-year-old-daughter, Lucie, once the Nazis occupy the country. After receiving notice that all foreigners must report to an internment camp, Vera has just a few hours to make an impossible choice: Does she subject Lucie to the horrid conditions of the camp, or does she put her into hiding with her beloved and trusted governess, safe until Vera can retrieve her? Believing the war will end soon, Vera chooses to leave Lucie in safety. She cannot know that she and her husband will have an opportunity to escape, to flee to America. She cannot know that Lucie's governess will have fled with Lucie to family in rural France, too far to reach in time.
And so begins a heartbreaking journey and separation, a war and a continent apart. Vera's marriage will falter under the surreal sun of California. Her ability to write--once her passion--will disappear. But Vera's love for Lucie, her faith that her daughter lives, will only grow. As Vera's determination to return to France and find Lucie crystalizes, she meets Sasha, a man on his own search for meaning. She is stronger with Sasha than she is alone. Together they will journey to Lucie. They will find her fate.
"[P]owerful...Landau brilliantly explores the blurred lines between good and evil as the characters wrestle with their own dire decisions and the choices of those they love. Once this magnetic book takes hold, it doesn't let go." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Plotlines converge, like America's entry into the war, at first too slowly and then breathlessly...With muted power, this book plumbs the role privilege plays in fate." - Kirkus Reviews
"Hard-hitting...Landau confidently illuminates her settings and her characters' psyches, [and] Vera's unwavering resolve to find Lucie amid the chaos of postwar France feels arrestingly real." – Booklist
"[Landau] thoughtfully juxtaposes moments of daily life with the broader scale of war...Readers looking for a strong foundation of historical fact blended into a fictional story, with the research sources to back it up, will find that mix right here." – Library Journal
"With lustrous prose and tight pacing, Alexis Landau sets into motion the smooth machinery of a gripping novel. Against the backdrop of World War II and the Holocaust, Those Who Are Saved binds the reader into a story of maternal love, erotic desire, and sweeping romance. I was carried away from beginning to end." - Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Sympathizer
"A profound and engaging story—Landau writes of the endurance of parental love in the face of Nazi occupation and terror, of finding those who were lost. I loved it." - Paulette Jiles, author of National Book Award finalist News of the World
"With poetic, mesmerizing prose, Alexis Landau creates a heartrending story of the unbreakable bond of maternal love. Those Who Are Saved brings to life a moment in history when all that is familiar disappears and every choice is potentially tragic. This gripping and compassionate novel continues to haunt me." - Lauren Belfer, New York Times bestselling author of And After the Fire, recipient of the National Jewish Book Award
This information about Those Who Are Saved was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Alexis Landau is a graduate of Vassar College and received an MFA from Emerson College and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. She is the author of The Empire of the Senses and lives with her husband and two children in Los Angeles.
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