The Nightingale
Kristin Hannah (2015)
“Two sisters in Nazi-occupied France make impossible choices — and one of them will disappear from history entirely.”
Short Summary
Vianne and Isabelle Rossignol are sisters living in occupied France during World War II. Vianne, the older sister, struggles to protect her daughter while sheltering Jewish children from Nazi deportation. Isabelle, reckless and idealistic, becomes a courier for the French Resistance under the code name 'the Nightingale,' guiding downed Allied airmen over the Pyrenees. Both sisters are captured. Isabelle dies of illness in Ravensbrück concentration camp. Vianne survives, and the novel reveals in its frame narrative that she — now elderly, living in America — is the unnamed 'old woman' narrating the entire story.
Detailed Summary
The novel opens in 1995 Oregon. An elderly woman is reluctantly packing up her home at her son's request. She receives an invitation to a reunion of French Resistance members in Paris and decides to attend — a decision that unlocks the story we are about to read. The main narrative begins in 1939 F...