The Nightingale

“What’s wrong?” my husband asked after my sobbing woke him. After wiping away my snotty tears, I answered, “This book,” referring to The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.

As I lay there crying in the middle of the night, I wondered why I do this to myself. I read to escape, not to feel! I also started to think that The Nightingale was too perceptive. Hannah must have based it on something real.

The Nightingale Summary

The Nightingale is about how two French sisters, Viann and Isabelle, survive World War II. It has everything a good World War II book should have: pain, suffering, strength, hope, and bravery. The Nightingale takes place in the French countryside and Paris. The story also takes us to the Pyrenees, which brings me to Isabelle.

Hannah introduces Isabelle as a wild child, a trouble maker. She is naïve and impulsive and her family doesn’t know what to do with her. After the war starts, Isabelle’s father forces her to live with her older sister Viann.

On Isabelle’s grueling walk from Paris to the French countryside she watches as Nazi planes mow down masses of people fleeing Paris. After seeing “a woman fly into the air like a rag doll and hit the ground in a heap,” Isabelle feels compelled to contribute to the war effort. During an argument with her sister she says, “I am not hiding out in the country while the Nazi’s destroy France… Let me tell you want I saw out there. French troops running from the enemy, Nazis murdering innocents. Maybe you can ignore that, but I won’t.” Later Isabelle joins the resistance and volunteers to escort downed Allied pilots across the Pyrenees to Spain.

Andrée de Jongh

As it turns out, my hunch was right. Hannah based Isabelle’s character in The Nightingale on a real woman, Andrée de Jongh. In a 2015 interview with the American Booksellers Association Hannah says,

“[Andrée de Jongh’s] story was magnificent, mesmerizing, and perhaps most importantly, I hadn’t read about it before. As a bona fide World War II buff, I had read countless novels set during the war, and yet I had never read this particular story; I didn’t know that downed airmen had hiked over the frozen peaks of the Pyrenees Mountains in boots that didn’t fit, in coats that were too small, with both German and Spanish patrols searching for them. I didn’t know about the ordinary French and Basque citizens who risked their lives to help the Allied soldiers on this dangerous, arduous journey. As I delved deeper into the research, I discovered a wealth of stories that spoke to me on a profound level. Quite simply, the heroism of the women of the French Resistance captured my imagination. For years, I collected their stories, read their accounts. Then I tossed the magic words into the mix — what if — and I was off and running.”

Isabelle’s codename is The Nightingale in the book. In real life, according to Adam Bernstein’s 2007 Washington Post article, “Andrée de Jongh; Belgian Helped Airmen Avoid Nazis,” de Jongh was known as “Dédée” and the “Petit Cyclone.” The path through France and across the Pyrenees was known as the Comet Line.

In a 2015 interview with Goodreads, Hannah explains, “Andrée and her dad started this escape route, and she personally led hundreds of downed airmen over this route and was caught, in actually much the same place Isabelle was caught in The Nightingale. She was sent to a concentration camp and survived. I believe she spent the rest of her life helping others in the Belgian Congo.”

Per Sara Corbett’s 2007 New York Times Magazine article “The Escape Artist,” de Jongh actually led 118 Allied soldiers through the Pyrenees. The comet line allowed over 700 more soldiers to escape. Corbett also points out the genius of de Jongh’s Comet Line: “A woman couldn’t carry a gun or fly a bomber jet, but she could walk unnoticed, striding down a street in a wool coat and sensible shoes as if on her way to the market or a typist’s job, trailed quietly by two or three wayward soldiers in disguise.”

The Nightingale Review

For both Isabelle and de Jongh, doing women’s work in war was never an option. In The Nightingale Isabelle feels compelled to fight. Her sister on the other hand is more concerned with keeping her daughter safe.

Because of moral questions like this as well as Hannah’s thorough descriptions of the struggles both Isabell and Viann had to endure, I found myself getting carried away in my own what-ifs while reading. What would I have done if I was Viann? Could I have done what Isabelle did? (I assure you, the answer is no.)

I love being wrapped up in a book this way, and I have Hannah’s excellent writing to thank for that. I also appreciated all the historical references in “The Nightingale.” And I’m glad it got me to look up Andrée de Jongh. Of course, World War II novels are always loaded with interesting history. They are also usually pretty good, which is why I want to know what your favorite World War II books are. Let me know in the comments!

The Nightingale: A Novel

by Kristin Hannah