Breakaway Books

Authored by Aurelia Thiele; Published September 2024; Historical fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️

In a world awash with World War II historical fiction novels, The Paris Understudy stands out. I can’t say I’ve ever read a novel where the protagonist (Hero? Antihero?) is a French collaborator.

In The Paris Understudy, Yvonne has the raw talent to be among the best sopranos of her generation, but she runs afoul of the leading lady of the day, Madeleine Moreau. A scheme to get her agent to book Yvonne more roles in Paris suddenly transforms into Yvonne performing for Nazi officers in Germany in the lead-up to World War II, and suddenly, Yvonne is blacklisted in French society. When her son is arrested at the beginning of the occupation of Paris, Yvonne reluctantly calls upon the one Nazi officer whose acquaintance she made in Germany to have her son released and becomes ensnared in the trap of collaboration. As the war rages, Yvonne feels more and more conflicted, but she can’t manage to disentangle herself from collaboration and keep her career intact.

When I first started this novel, I thought surely either Yvonne or Madeleine would be the classical heroine. Frankly, neither fits the bill—they are both obsessed with their reputations, their fame, and the opportunity to star on the Paris Opera stage. It made for a far more interesting plot filled with ethical quandaries without clear answers. Yvonne becomes known as the face of French collaboration, and yet, as I read, I understood every choice she makes, especially considering that her most drastic decisions are the ones she makes to save her son from imprisonment and deportation. However, it is clear by the end of the war that Yvonne should have put a stop to it somewhere—but where? Madeleine, in contrast, is an opera diva who refuses to go down the path of collaboration, partially because of her pride in being French, but also because of her affair with a Jewish man who shames her into defying the Nazis. Neither woman is entirely pure in her motivations, and because of that, I was captivated.

But, it’s hard not to think that both Madeleine and Yvonne are forced into hard choices at least in part because they are women. It infuriated me that Henri, Madeleine’s husband, was easily the most villainous of them all and got to move on after the war with his life and career intact. Yes, Yvonne could have made a lot of different choices—but at the point at which she was being raped and physically abused by the Nazi officer who sets her son free, I can understand why she makes the choices she does. (Her son, of course, does not understand: the foolhardiness of youth?) Among the most breathtaking of Yvonne’s follies is her ignorance, because, quite simply, at some point she has to choose not to know what the Nazis are doing. And yet, many of us make versions of this very choice.

The Paris Understudy made me wonder what I would have done in the same circumstances as Yvonne. That introspection is difficult, but valuable.