Point of View

The novel is narrated in the third-person, switching between the perspectives of Annelise, the main narrator, and her granddaughter, Clare. Annelise is a young German Jewish woman who lived with her parents and worked in the family bakery until the beginning of World War II when she moves to the U.S. with her husband and young daughter. Annelise embarks on a journey of self-discovery and growth as she begins to understand how to be a wife and mother while maintaining her own identity and going through the complicated process of getting her parents to the U.S. Annelise is consumed by loneliness and anxiety as the situation in Germany deteriorates and she finds herself caught up in an emotional affair with her husband’s friend. Lauren Fox does not place any limitations on the access to Annelise’s inner thoughts, allowing the reader to...