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. And Skeletons at the Feast chronicled the last six months of World War Two in Poland and Germany with nail-biting authenticity. As The Washington Post Book World has noted, Bohjalian writes "the sorts of books people stay awake all night to finish."
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.
Industry Reviews
"A deeply moving story of survival and enduring love." --USA Today "Bohjalian deftly weaves the many threads of this story back and forth, from past to present, from abuse to humanity, from devastation to redemption. . . . Utterly riveting." --The Washington Post
"Chris Bohjalian is at his very finest in this searing story of love and war. I was mesmerized from page one. Bravo!" --Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife
"Bohjalian--the grandson of Armenian survivors--pours passion, pride, and sadness into his tale of ethnic destruction and endurance." --Entertainment Weekly
"Dead-solid perfect. Bohjalian is a literary novelist unafraid to reference Proust's madeleine and expect readers to get it. But his books are also filled with artfully drawn characters and great, passionate storytelling. The Sandcastle Girls is all that, but different, more powerful." --The Seattle Times
"In his latest novel, master storyteller Chris Bohjalian explores the ways in which our ancestral past informs our contemporary lives--in ways we understand and ways that remain mysteriously out of reach. The Sandcastle Girls is deft, layered, eye-opening, and riveting. I was deeply moved." --Wally Lamb, author of The Hour I First Believed
"A searing, tightly woven tale of war and the legacy it leaves behind. . . . A nuanced, sophisticated portrayal of what it means not only to endure, but to insist on hope." --Oprah.com
"It takes a talented novelist to combine fully ripened characters, an engrossing storyline, exquisite prose and set it against a horrific historical backdrop--in this case, the Armenian Genocide--and completely enchant readers. The prolific and captivating Chris Bohjalian has done it all with The Sandcastle Girls." --Associated Press
"The scope of The Sandcastle Girls is almost epic. . . . While there are the rich personal stories that his readers connect to, what he has achieved is much larger. Bohjalian has written a compelling and powerful novel that will bring the history of the genocide to a wide audience. The Sandcastle Girls will remain ingrained in your consciousness." --The Armenian Weekly
"[A] great read. . . . Affecting." --People
"This book is a masterfully written story of war and love and is especially meaningful as we approach the centennial observance of the 1915 Armenian genocide." --Louisville Courier-Journal
"A compelling new novel that is part love story, part history lesson. . . . An eye-opening tale of longing and discovery. . . . A bittersweet reflection on hope even in the darkest circumstances. . . . [The Sandcastle Girls] is about the ways the past informs the present, about the pain but also the richness of heritage." --The Miami Herald
"Bohjalian succeeds in depicting the horror, without sentimentalizing it. . . . He has fulfilled the duty of anyone seeking to document a genocide--he ensures that we don't look away." --The Boston Globe
"An unforgettable exposition of the still too-little-known facts of the Armenian genocide and its multigenerational consequences." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Touching and believable, adding a softer dimension to what is at times a brutal story." --The Vancouver Sun
"Bohjalian powerfully narrates an intricately nuanced romance with a complicated historical event at the forefront. With the centennial of the Armenian genocide fast approaching, this is not to be missed. Simply astounding." --Library Journal (starred review)
"A beautiful, frightening, and unforgettable read." --Publishers Weekly
"[Bohjalian's] characters are as real as our own relatives. The well-researched history that forms the background informs, intrigues, and enchants--even as recollections of horror mount." --The Florida Times-Union
"A tender love story." --The Plain Dealer
"Remarkably supple. . . . Bohjalian keeps his eyes on the personal, the little moments that illuminate broader social movements. . . . Moment by moment, and passage by passage, the novel lights up a disturbing period of history." --The Columbus Dispatch
"So poignant. . . . Passion comes through clearly in The Sandcastle Girls, with Bohjalian's carefully chosen words, his flesh and blood characters, and his vivid descriptions. . . . It is a story of death and the triumph of life and quite possibly the best thing Bohjalian has written." --The Salisbury Post
"I was completely mesmerized by The Sandcastle Girls. Bohjalian pulls his readers into this fictional yet historical setting by educating, entertaining and enthralling them with beautifully written prose. . . . Truly enchanting." --The Times Record News
"Sober, elegiac, and respectful. It's not for the Lauras to capture the agony of those who perished, but they can, in small ways, show how human dignity reasserted itself in the face of unthinkable breaches of the social contract. At the opening of the novel, Laura reflects that Americans could benefit from a book called The Armenian Genocide for Dummies. Indeed, many of us could--but a fiction like Bohjalian's, with its power to reach legions of readers, may be far more valuable." --Seven Days
"So filled is it with the suspense of life and death that The Sandcastle Girls is difficult to categorize. The story is fiction, but it is true. It's history, but it's also art." --The Weekly Standard
"[A] moving multi-generational saga. . . . A sober, elegiac, and touching novel." --Bookreporter
"A romance so beautiful and believable it hurts." --The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA)
