The Orphan's Tale

The Orphan’s Tale by Pan Jenoff       344 pages

 I think NPR said it best: "Christina Baker Kline's ‘Orphan Train’ has collided with the circus caravan from Sara Gruen's ‘Water for Elephants,’ and out of wreck has come Pam Jenoff's ‘The Orphan's Tale.’ The novel is a magical carnival saga, a bit grittier than either of its antecedents, and with more at stake...Jenoff has written a tribute to the human spirit that soars in the midst of epic despair."

And I ask you, “How could I pass this up?”  In short, I didn’t. I quickly moved this one up to the top of my TBR pile and dug right in.

We start with a prologue where an elderly woman makes her way into a new exhibit on European circuses. Based on the dust jacket, I know that it’s either Noa or Astrid.  By the time I reached the prologue’s end, I was hooked. Then the story moves back in time to Germany, 1944.

When Noa is sixteen, she is kicked out of her parents’ home when she discovers she is pregnant by a German officer.  While we only see her after she has given up her baby, we see that she has lost none of that innocence that got her in the family way.  Noa is cleaning a train station and lives in a closet. One night, a train pulls in. Thinking she hears a baby crying, Noa inspects the boxcars and finds a horrific sight. One of the cars’ floor is covered with babies, none more than two years old. Most are dead, frozen, but she pulls one out.

Taking the child, she runs away in the middle of a blizzard. She is found by Astrid and is taken in. Astrid is one of Europe’s leading aerialists, but with a war raging, she is not with her family circus. Instead, she is with her neighbor’s family circus.

The Neuhoff Circus needs another aerialist, so Noa must take to the trapeze to earn her place in these strangers who become family. The young women become close. Almost as if they were sisters, watching out for each other.  Noa kept the baby she stole and named him Theo. One of the major hurdles that they face, is that Astrid is Jewish.

The story is the tale of the circus and its people. I loved reading about how Astrid trained Noa and circus life in the 1940s.  The book ends with an epilogue that gives complete closure to all the supporting characters. It was nice to learn their fate.

The story did get sluggish in the bottom part of the first third. I wanted to give The Orphan’s Tale receives 6 stars, but that blip caused me to award  5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.