The Storyteller of Casablanca by Fiona Valpy
Genre: Historical fiction, Contemporary fiction, Dual timeline, Wartime fiction, WW2
Read: 10th October 2021
Published: 21st September 2021
★★★★ 3.5 stars (rounded up)
DESCRIPTION:
In this evocative tale from the bestselling author of The Dressmaker’s Gift, a strange new city offers a young girl hope. Can it also offer a lost soul a second chance?
Morocco, 1941. With France having fallen to Nazi occupation, twelve-year-old Josie has fled with her family to Casablanca, where they await safe passage to America. Life here is as intense as the sun, every sight, smell and sound overwhelming to the senses in a city filled with extraordinary characters. It’s a world away from the trouble back home—and Josie loves it.
Seventy years later, another new arrival in the intoxicating port city, Zoe, is struggling—with her marriage, her baby daughter and her new life as an expat in an unfamiliar place. But when she discovers a small wooden box and a diary from the 1940s beneath the floorboards of her daughter’s bedroom, Zoe enters the inner world of young Josie, who once looked out on the same view of the Atlantic Ocean, but who knew a very different Casablanca.
It’s not long before Zoe begins to see her adopted city through Josie’s eyes. But can a new perspective help her turn tragedy into hope, and find the comfort she needs to heal her broken heart?
MY REVIEW:
I must admit, I was intrigued by the premise for this book particularly as it was dual timelined which is of course one of my favourite forms of historical fiction. Although I have a couple of Fiona Valpy's books, THE STORYTELLER OF CASABLANCA is actually the first one I've read. It was heartbreaking and compelling at the same time although I did feel it drag a little at times, mostly through Zoe's narrative. I was, however, immediately captivated by Josie's story through her journal and admittedly it was that that kept me turning the pages till the end.
Casablanca, Morocco 1941: When 12 year old (nearly 13) Josie Duval and her family arrive in Casablanca, having fled France when the Germans invade Paris, it is but a stepping stone to their new future that awaits them across the Atlantic in America. For Josie and her sister Annette are half-Jewish as their maman Delphine is a Jew, a lapsed non-practicing one though the Germans would see no difference. To save his family from certain death, Guillaume Duval arranges a passage to Casablanca where they will apply for American visas and await their transit to Portugal which would then see their passage to America.
However, Casablanca during wartime wasn't an easy place to live. Upon arrival, the Duvals are taken to a refugee camp before they move to a house in which they will live whilst awaiting their passage to America. Almost at once, Josie falls in love with everything about Casablanca - the sights, the sounds, the food, the people and of course its warm climate. She makes friends with their housekeeper's daughter Nina who is the same age as Josie and the two spend almost every moment together, even visiting the library and pouring over Dorothy L. Sayers books as well as those of Agatha Christie which the two girls devour with relish. After some time, Josie begins to feel so settled there that she begins to dread the moment her papa secures their visas and necessary paperwork to see them across the Atlantic. Maybe it was just as well the whole process was slow and tedious that it seemed like that day would never arrive.
And then strange things begin to occur. Josie began to notice her papa going to many meetings and the stealthy slip of a brown envelope passed to the tutor they hired to maintain her schooling. A couple of family trips seemed a bit out of the ordinary - one to the mountains and the other along the Moroccan coast - whilst they happened across a nasty little man that made Josie especially feel uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, her 17 year old sister Annette had been mourning the fact they had to leave her boyfriend Eduardo and would often break out in floods of tears...in between finding ways to torment her little sister. And then she met Olivier and suddenly Eduardo was forgotten which Josie was at pains to remind her.
But the war was getting closer to Casablanca and time was running out for the Duvals to escape to America before it was too late...
Casablanca 2010: Seventy years later, Zoe and her husband Tom arrive in the Moroccan town for a fresh start. Tom has secured a job in the ports there (though I'm not exactly sure what he did as that was never really outlined) while Zoe struggled to find a way to fill her time in the sprawling and somewhat empty house. Except that she had Grace, her beautiful little daughter. It's clear from the outset that Zoe and Tom's marriage is floundering and neither of them are doing much to find their way back to each other. They are like ships that pass in the night as Tom wakes before Zoe to go for an early morning run, comes home long enough to shower and change before rushing off to work where he often stays late, stopping off for a drink or three afterwards only to return home to a cold dinner and an annoyed wife. But what happened to them to rip their world apart?
Although she and Tom appear to be drifting further and further apart, Zoe meets some other British ex-pat wives who make her feel extremely welcome. Despite her fear of social situations and outings, she meets Kate and May for lunch regularly - the women bonding over Zoe's desire to begin a quilt she wishes to sew by hand as a labour of love.
It's the wee hours of one morning that Josie creeps upstairs to Grace's attic room to watch her daughter sleep that she stumbles over the creaking board under the rug again. She pulls the rug up and attempts to flatten the floorboard but it appears to be buckled and loose. She pulls it up to reveal a leather-bound notebook and small sandalwood box with a pearl lid. She pulls out the items - a Star of David necklace, a scrap of faded blue paper, a feather and a piece of green sea glass - and ponders the significance of these things that were once somebody's treasures. Then she opens the notebook. It's a diary...written by a 12 year old girl called Josiana Duval in the year 1941.
Curled up next to Grace who sleeps soundly on the bed, Zoe steps back in time to a different Casablanca during wartime and begins to see the town through Josie's eyes. It's through Josie that Zoe feels a deep connection to the place and she becomes fascinated with her story and the plight which she and her family had faced. As Zoe is swept up in Josie's story wanting to find out what happened to the family and if they made it to America, Josie's story becomes entwined with her own - tying them together through hope, friendship and grief...but above all, the Moroccan culture of storytelling and dream-sellers welded deep in history.
THE STORYTELLER OF CASABLANCA is indeed a captivating story that will have you absorbed from the beginning. However, the story does dip a little particularly through Zoe's narrative as it was difficult to connect with her. All we seemed to know about her was that she and her husband moved to Casablanca, their marriage was floundering (though we don't know why...yet) and she is obsessed with washing and rewashing her hands to the point they bleed, are dry and scaly from the dermatitis. And yet she continues to do it as she continues to bite at the skin surrounding her nails. The reason for this becomes clear by the end but it did slow the pace somewhat at times. It was Josie's story that is the winner and it was Josie's story that kept me turning the pages...and in the end I'm glad I stuck it out because the ending was worth it.
The story of Casablanca during the war is one that is little known or told. My grandfather fought in North Africa during the war and was one of the rats of Tobruk. And while wartime novels mainly feature Britain or European countries such a Germany, France or Austria, Casablanca or any North African country features very little in wartime fiction. I certainly enjoyed it far more than a previous book set in the same place and it is interesting to note that a number of the characters mentioned and portrayed in the story were in fact real people who featured in the Resistance movement there at the time. Including the famous singer and actress Josephine Baker.
I didn't see the end of the story coming at all though when I think back on it, it makes perfect sense. It is a heartbreaking tale set in frightening and turbulent times that we could only imagine but it is a story that offers hope through adversity and grief.
Beautifully written, THE STORYTELLER OF CASABLANCA is an enchanting and moving tale of two women separated by time each with their own struggles, thus creating something of an interesting perspective that is woven together beautifully by the end.
If you like historical fiction, wartime fiction or dual timelines and you're looking for something a little different, you should definitely check this out.
I would like to thank #FionaValpy, #Netgalley and #LakeUnionPublishing for an ARC of #TheStorytellerOfCasablanca in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
All of these inspirations, along with a love for the place, the people and their history, have found their way into the books she’s written, which have been translated into German, Norwegian, Czech, Slovenian and Turkish.
Fiona now lives in Scotland, but enjoys regular visits to France in search of the sun.
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