The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

I'm reading this now.  I'd gotten interested in it because the plot seemed so clever, and because I saw that it was a popular book club book.

Lucien is an architect living in Paris, two years into the German occupation.  He's a man with few political convictions, and he's somewhat desperate because he hasn't had an architectural commission since the Germans invaded.  The city of light is now bleak and dreary.  Many of the population have fled and it's difficult to get any but the most basic food.

He's approached by a wealthy industrialist, Manet, with a surprising commission.  Manet wants Lucien to design an undiscoverable hiding place for a Jew on the run from the Gestapo.  Lucien is shocked, angered and terrified by this request.  Manet sweetens his well-paid offer with the promise of a commission to design a factory to be built for the Nazi war effort.  Lucien, a frustrated modernist, can't resist the lure.

I thought that this would be a suspenseful book, and it is - I've left off reading at Chapter 25 because I'm so terrified.

I was resolved to finish, and so I have.  The book became even more terrifying.  Lucien experienced so many reversals of fortune, as did the people around him.

I was amazed when I came to the final chapter.  I thought I was still many pages from the end.  It turned out that that was because I was reading a paperback book club edition, with book group discussion questions, an interview with the author, and an "Acknowledgment".

I was interested in all of them.

One of the book discussion questions, number 14, was this:  "If you were a gentile living under the Nazis in World War II, do you think you would have had the courage to hide Jews?  What consequences are you willing to face to help others?"  I spent a lot of time, while reading the book, thinking about this question.

I think one reason I spent so much time thinking about this is that Lucien was initially very unwilling to help Manet in his effort to hide Jews.  Lucien was terrified by the very idea.  He thought that the chances that they all would be caught were very great, and he knew that they would all be killed.  As a matter of fact, the novel opens with a death.  It underscored the terror of living in Paris under the Occupation. While the Germans were not intent on killing the French, they were ruthless in making examples of anyone they could to frighten the French into abandoing all hope of fighting back.

Lucien is persuaded to accept this dangerous commission because food is getting more and more expensive in Paris, and his dependence on his wife's savings has hurt their marriage, already strained by his wife's inability to have children.  The far more powerful reason is that he not only has not had any work since the start of the war but he has never been successful in getting his career going; he's never had a major commission and he has never been able to build a building in the style he most admires, the modern style professed by the Bauhaus architects.

As the novel wears on, however, while he continues to be ruled by his ego, and often notes in his own mind that architects are very influenced by their egos, Lucien changes.  His experience awakens feelings that he didn't know that he had.  He's quite a different person by the end of the novel.

In The Nightingale, Isabelle was a resistance fighter.  She escorted downed pilots across the Pyrenees.  She was a heroine, but she was quite different from Lucien.  She knew, as soon as France was invaded, that she had to do something to fight back.  Lucien is more like Isabelle's sister, who became increasingly worn down by the war but the escalation of food shortages, murders and deportation formed in her a resolve to fight back.

While war certainly brings out the worst in us, as you would expect chronic fear and deprivation to do, in this novel it brings out the best in Lucien.

In the interview with the author that was printed in the back of my copy, I learned that he is an architectural historian who's written several books about architectural history.  I was delighted to learn that he is an Anne Tyler fan, as I have been since I found a discarded copy of If Tomorrow Ever Comes someplace. Belfoure said that as a native of Baltimore, as Tyler is, he has enjoyed recognizing the places she names in her novels.

In his Acknowledgement, author Belfoure thanked his editor at Sourcebooks (the publisher).  I was so glad to see this, as I think that editors have an important in shaping books.

I read this book with my book group and one member called it a real "page turner" and no one seemed to find any fault with it which is a distinction in itself.