Novel set in Paris and Provence (a missing daughter, a desperate mother…)

19th April 2018

The Lost Girl by Carol Drinkwater, novel set in Paris and Provence.

Kurtiz Ross, a celebrated war photographer, has given up on work, on relationships, on the whole of life since her daughter, Lizzie, went missing four years ago. And then the girl is spotted on some Parisian news footage by Kurtiz and so she and her estranged husband, Oliver, rush to Paris to attempt to track their daughter down. Oliver thinks it likely that the now-twenty-year-old would attend a rock concert at the Bataclan that evening so he goes there while Kurtiz waits for news at a nearby bar/bistro.

Only hours later, Paris is plunged into a series of terrorist attacks. Kurtiz, passing time in the bistro, has been pinned by an aged actress, Marguerite Courtenay, who proceeds to tell her life story. This account of her youth in Paris in 1947, her meeting with Charlie Gilliard and their subsequent life together in Provence, forms the second plotline to the novel. As the horrors of the night in Paris unfold, Marguerite reaches out to support the younger woman and ultimately, she is able to bring hope and to help Kurtiz live again.

This novel is quite beautifully crafted from the first word to the very last. Drinkwater is very skilful at describing scenes of great brutality and doesn’t shy away from the graphic details which bring it to life. The description of – Dieppe 1942, as Charlie attempts to piece together the bits of his blown-apart comrades will stay with me for a long time and the section describing the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in 2015 is utterly gripping – nothing short of superb.

It is very apparent that Drinkwater is an experienced and accomplished travel writer; The Lost Girl is full of brilliant descriptions of place. She recreates the atmosphere and the characters found in a typical Parisian bistro to perfection and her descriptions of the area around Grasse, with its flower-filled fields and air full of the scents of roses and wild herbs creates a longing in the reader to go and experience this place for yourself.

All in all, this is quite flawless writing, with a fairly profound message. Basing her novel on the horrific events in Paris on November 2015 and including a powerful and moving account of Kurtiz’ experience in Palestine, allows the writer to explore the brutality and idiocy of war and demonstrate how it is capable of depriving men of any scrap of humanity. But the same events are used to highlight the best human qualities, the way in which people can pull together in the face of atrocity to reach out to and help each other.

The Lost Girl is a superb read and not one you can easily put down. Drinkwater takes the reader through panic, terror, anguish, and pain but at the end leaves you with a sense of peace and the hope and belief that what is best in human nature will ultimately win through.

Ellen for the TripFiction Team

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