1. Describe Ruby Henderson’s first encounter
with Marcel Benoit. Who or what is responsible for the distance that
grows between them during their short marriage?
2. "Why do we have to be Jewish anyhow?" (page 14) How does
eleven-year-old Charlotte Dacher experience religious discrimination in
the days leading up to the Nazi occupation of France? To what extent do
her feelings of alienation facilitate her special bond with the American
expatriate Ruby Benoit? What shared qualities make Charlotte and Ruby
compatible?
3. Compare and contrast Marcel Benoit’s and Charlotte Dacher’s reactions
to the news that Ruby is pregnant. What do their reactions reveal about
their characters and their feelings about Ruby?
4. "I don’t understand. You’re working for the Allies? Why didn’t you
tell me?"(page 60) Discuss Marcel’s secrecy about his underground
Resistance efforts. How reasonable is his decision to keep his work
concealed from his wife? Does Ruby’s sense of personal betrayal in light
of Marcel’s secret seem justified? Why, or why not?
5. How does Ruby’s baby’s stillbirth impact her relationship with the
Dacher family and her sense of personal responsibility for Charlotte?
How does the child’s death affect Ruby’s relationship with her husband,
Marcel?
6. "I must help. I must take over Marcel’s work on the [escape]
line."(page 103) Why does Ruby volunteer to continue her late husband’s
work in the immediate aftermath of his death? What does her
determination suggest about her love for her adopted country?
7. How does the arrival of the injured RAF pilot Thomas Clarke help Ruby
to regain her self-confidence and sense of purpose? What does his
willingness to risk discovery in order to help Charlotte’s mother reveal
about his nature?
8. "This is France, Madame Benoit. We are French citizens."(page 204)
Discuss the roundups taking place in Paris during the German occupation.
Why does Monsieur Dacher persist in believing his French citizenship
will protect him and his family from being arrested? To what extent does
Ruby’s eventual arrest and imprisonment as an American citizen seem
surprising?
9. How does Lucien, the young forger, become an important part of Ruby’s
extended Resistance family? What explains the intensity of Lucien’s
connection with Charlotte?
10. How does Thomas’s return to Paris two years after Ruby helped him to
escape the first time confirm the depth of their feelings for each
other? Given her unique predicament—serving as a surrogate parent to
Charlotte, sheltering wayward Allied pilots, and eking out survival
during wartime without any steady income—why does Ruby surrender to
Thomas’s affections? How does her eventual pregnancy transform her?
11. "This war, it has changed everything about the world. But our most
important lives are still on the inside, aren’t they? What matters is
what’s in your heart." (page 312) Discuss Charlotte’s distinction
between inside lives and outside lives. Why might difficult historical
and cultural periods such as wartime serve as catalysts for more
dramatic interior lives?
12. How would you describe Ravensbrück, the German work camp where Ruby
is imprisoned? Why does her pregnancy make Ruby especially vulnerable in
the camp? What does the altruism of fellow detainees and German
civilians reveal about the potential for goodness in the midst of
tremendous evil?
13. To what extent were the deaths of Ruby and Thomas a narrative
surprise to you? Why do you think the author chose to end their lives at
the same point in the dramatic arc of the novel? How would you describe
your reaction to the author’s description of their afterlife reunion in
the poppy fields of California?
14. Discuss the depictions of Paris in wartime in the novel. How do the
author’s details of the behavior of German soldiers toward the French,
of the detention camps, and of the efforts of the Resistance enable you
to visualize the novel’s milieu? Which details did you find most
compelling? Why?
15. Why do you think the author chose to frame her novel with beginning
and ending chapters involving Charlotte and Lucien? Based on ambiguities
in the book’s opening chapter, what assumptions did you make about Ruby
and Thomas as you read the novel? How did you feel when you discovered
the final chapter was about Charlotte and Lucien?
* Some questions from
LitLovers.