Lead Review

• Book: The Registrar’s Manual for Detecting Forced Marriages
• Location: Germany, Paris
• Author: Sophie Hardach

The book opens on a terrific first chapter and affirms the gifted writing style of the author, Sophie Hardach. Two storylines interweave, the main one is the narrator’s recent life married to Selim, a Kurdish refugee whom she marries so that he can remain in Germany: it is a marriage of convenience, a “mariage blanc”, entered into at the naive and tender age of 18. The second storyline is the story of her current life in Paris, where she assists at the Mairie conducting weddings and her quest to investigate proposed marriage unions that may not be all that they seem.
She remains married for 7 years, and she and Selim lead very separate lives, and occasionally have to respond to situations together – when the authorities investigate their circumstances, for example. The author has clearly researched the plight of Kurds and the novel is informative about the struggles of the individual refugee.
The narrative is very readable, however the structure of the book can be confusing, and tends to jump about in a sometimes random manner. Towards the end the narrator talks a bit about how she can metaphorically sit with a straight upright posture, but then finds herself sagging with a hunched spine – for me this reflected how the book progressed, I vied between sitting upright and interested and enraptured, contrasted with finding myself sagging and drifting and losing interest in the characters. However, this is also a clear mirroring of how a refugee might feel – and indeed how Selim feels in Neustadt, alienated and confused. Overall this is an unusually crafted novel.
Bettina Hartas for Welovethisbook.com

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