A NOVEL ABOUT A MASSACRE
Daily American Online
July 18 2012
“The Sandcastle Girls” by Chris Bohjalian, Doubleday, 320 pages, $25.
“How do a million and a half people die with nobody knowing? You kill
them in the middle of nowhere.”
This is a story of a massacre that you probably know nothing about;
the Armenian genocide during the First World War.
In 1915, Elizabeth Endicott, 21, takes a crash course in nursing. The
young woman from Boston has learned a little Armenian. She accompanies
her father to Aleppo, Syria, as volunteers with the Friends of Armenia
to deliver food and medical aid to refugees. She becomes friends with
Armen, an Armenian engineer, whose wife and baby died.
Fast-forward to the present. Laura Petrosian lives in New York. She
is a freshman in college. She is in a museum one day and sees a
photograph. She recognizes her grandmother, Elizabeth. Elizabeth and
Armen are no longer living.
This is a remarkable book, rich in historical detail. Yes, the scenes
of the refuges suffering and dying can be brutal, but there are times
we needed to be reminded that terrible things happen. The story of
Elizabeth and Armen is touching and then you find out that one of
them kept a big secret from the other.
Chris Bohjalian is the author of 15 books. He said readers asked him
for years to write about his Armenian heritage.