Review: "A Fifty-Year Silence - Love, War and a Ruined House in France" by Miranda Richmond Mouillot

There has been animosity between Miranda’s grandparents her whole life. It is so great that they haven’t talked to each other in 50 years. They don’t even live on the same continent. Looking through old photographs, she finds pictures of them when they appear to be a happily married couple and she wants to understand what happened to completely destroy their love. Neither is forth coming in response to her questions so she makes it her quest to understand their early life. Her journey takes her to France where she takes up residence near her grandfather and explores their past lives while broadening her own.

Ms. Mouillot is a brilliant author of this nonfiction tome. Her grandparents’ story is not easy to research. They are survivors of the Holocaust. The records from this time period are not easy to decipher. Her grandfather is not forth coming with information and her grandmother dropped hints in numerous letters. It took extensive research to put all the pieces together. She has managed to write a moving tribute to them and their early life. She has a wonderful writing style that keeps you interested and turning pages. She built up the suspense in such a way that I wanted to know, just as much as her, what caused this silence!

This book is bittersweet. It reminds us that the Holocaust changed people’s lives in unimaginable ways and some scars were not visible. I recommend this book as a starting place to delve deeper into this historical tragedy.

I have requested and received this book for review from Blogging for Books.