Sisters of Night and Fog, by Erika Robuck

Two extraordinary women in a time of madness and dread.

The heroines in Erika Robuck’s novels are always well crafted. There are two women in Sisters Of Night And Fog, making their way through the desperate times of German occupation of France in World War II. The stories of the two women take place in separate locations during most of the novel, Virginia in France and Violette in England and France. These stories are carefully entwined by Robuck in alternating chapters that, each with its own plot, create deep and complex characters for the reader, the contrasting feelings and circumstances of the two transcending the prose in many ways. There is wonderful imagery associated with each plot that, like the details on the periphery of a woman’s portrait, complements the character development in the story. Although the plot’s events are horrible, the portraits of Virginia and Violette are beautiful, which makes the grief in the story all the worse after the two come together at Ravensbruck.

The novel utilizes two points of view and an interval of decades. Almost all of the plot is depicted in the third person voices of Virginia and Violette during World War II. But the story begins with an unidentified woman talking in the first person in 1995 at Ravensbruck with another woman. There are hints at the identity of the women, but they have no meaning until the story progresses through several of the war years. A reader knows from the imagery associated with the first person narrator that tragedy will occur at some point. There is a “wave of nausea” at the sight of Ravensbruck and difficulty with reconciling “the withering body I inhabit with the woman I am in my mind.” This first person narration, positioned intermittently through the novel, is an engine of dread, revving its power when it appears. Suspense filled each chapter in The Invisible Woman, but it wasn’t coupled with the dread that appears in Sisters Of Night And Fog. In the latter, a reader turns the pages with a desperate hope that the worse will not occur.

No matter how many times one reads about German atrocities during World War II, the emotions evoked are almost visceral, and so horrendous as to be incredible. One cannot help but want to find some beacon of understanding in the darkness. Perhaps it is courage, a word often exchanged by the heroines in Sisters Of Night And Fog. Still, there is too much cruelty and misfortune for much light to shine, too much horror for the courageous survivors to claim a victory. For the survivors in Sisters Of Night And Fog, there is only a hollow victory at the liberation, and a fleeting one at that for the fact that nothing could change the shooting alley’s “wall still stained with blood after fifty years. There’s nothing that will ever remove those stains. Not from the wall. Not from the perpetrators’ souls.”

Sisters Of Night And Fog is a story replete with contrasts. In some places, the contrasts denote strength. Virginia and her husband, Philippe, are made strong by their differences. “Where she’s anxious, he’s calm.” The imagery associated with them make Virginia’s character complex: “He’s the sun to her moon. Their dance of opposites brings them each in perfect balance.” But Violette’s contrasts are rough ones, her personality challenging and her demeanor confrontative, particularly with her father. She has to dig deep to be strong. What comes to mind is a stag, stomping its foot before it bellows. This image is employed brilliantly by the author, both in England and in France, and, in a marvelous presentiment of the fates of the heroines, it is on one occasion associated with a German officer hunting. Another magnificent image is the day moon, a moon that captivates children. The day moon appears several times in the novel, but it is at the end, when it is combined with courage, that a redemption of a sort is suggested. Can making known the German atrocities and the women’s courage be a useful lesson concerning the scar upon humanity caused by Hitler? History educates, it is true. But can it be an inoculation against a future barbarity? Today’s barbarous acts have been made commonplace by modern media coverage, almost to the point that there is a dull acceptance of it by viewers. Perhaps, novels like Sisters Of Night And Fog can sharpen the blade of Hitler’s horrors that should cut deep into all of our souls.

Ericka Robuck’s mastery of the historic novel is in part due to her careful and extensive research of the era in which her stories take place. The heroines in Sisters Of Night And Fog were based on real heroines, Virginia D’Albert-Lake and Violette Szabo. Bringing them together into a single story attests to Erika Robuck’s creativity, what makes her novels so much better than most. She has taken these real people and historical events and woven them into a beautiful tapestry that can only inspire future generations, for whom this history must be kept alive.

For more about Erika Robuck, visit her website at http://www.erikarobuck.com.