The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel

By Chris Bohjalian

The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel

Overview from Goodreads:

Over the course of his career, New York Times bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian has taken readers on a spectacular array of journeys. Midwives brought us to an isolated Vermont farmhouse on an icy winter’s night and a home birth gone tragically wrong. The Double Bind perfectly conjured the Roaring Twenties on Long Island—and a young social worker’s descent into madness....moreOver the course of his career, New York Times bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian has taken readers on a spectacular array of journeys.
In his fifteenth book, The Sandcastle Girls, he brings us on a very different kind of journey. This spellbinding tale travels between Aleppo, Syria, in 1915 and Bronxville, New York, in 2012—a sweeping historical love story steeped in the author’s Armenian heritage, making it his most personal novel to date.
When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Syria, she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke College, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. The First World War is spreading across Europe, and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide. There, Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. When Armen leaves Aleppo to join the British Army in Egypt, he begins to write Elizabeth letters, and comes to realize that he has fallen in love with the wealthy, young American woman who is so different from the wife he lost.Flash forward to the present, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in suburban New York. Although her grandparents’ ornate Pelham home was affectionately nicknamed the “Ottoman Annex,” Laura has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought. But when an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura’s grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family’s history that reveals love, loss—and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.

My Thoughts: 

Whenever I hear that Chris Bohjalian has written a new book, I know that I must read it.  I do not care what the subject matter is about.  I don’t care what the title is, how many pages or what the book cover looks like.  I just know that if is written by this author, I must read it.

I now find myself at the end of The Sandcastle Girls.  I have only one thing to say: Good Golly Miss Molly!  Why do I say this?  The book was excellent.

I have mentioned before that history was never my thing in school.  Even with that, I do not recall ever hearing about the Armenian genocide. To quote from the book “How do a million and a half people die with nobody knowing?  You kill them in the middle of nowhere.”

Needless to say, this story is heartbreakingly sad.  There are a very few snippets of happiness toward the end.  In the hands of a different writer, I’m not sure I would have or could have read this book.  But Mr. Bohjalian writes such an eloquent story that I could not put it down.  When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it.  And even now that I have finished, the story has stayed with me.  I have a feeling I will be thinking about it for a long time to come.

Thank you to Netgalley and Doubleday Publishing for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

The publish date for the book is July 17, 2012.

My Rating: *****

Over the course of his career, New York Times bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian has taken readers on a spectacular array of journeys. Midwives brought us to an isolated Vermont farmhouse on an icy winter’s night and a home birth gone tragically wrong. The Double Bind perfectly conjured the Roaring Twenties on Long Island—and a young social worker’s descent into madness....more

Over the course of his career, New York Times bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian has taken readers on a spectacular array of journeys. Midwives brought us to an isolated Vermont farmhouse on an icy winter’s night and a home birth gone tragically wrong. The Double Bind perfectly conjured the Roaring Twenties on Long Island—and a young social worker’s descent into madness....more