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    The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel
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    The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel
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    The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel

    Written by Chris Bohjalian

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell and Alison Fraser

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Over the course of his career, New York Times bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian has taken readers on a spectacular array of journeys. Midwives brought us to an isolated Vermont farmhouse on an icy winter's night and a home birth gone tragically wrong. The Double Bind perfectly conjured the Roaring Twenties on Long Island-and a young social worker's descent into madness. And Skeletons at the Feast chronicled the last six months of World War Two in Poland and Germany with nail-biting authenticity. As The Washington Post Book World has noted, Bohjalian writes "the sorts of books people stay awake all night to finish."
    In his fifteenth book, The Sandcastle Girls, he brings us on a very different kind of journey. This spellbinding tale travels between Aleppo, Syria, in 1915 and Bronxville, New York, in 2012-a sweeping historical love story steeped in the author's Armenian heritage, making it his most personal novel to date.
    When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Syria, she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke College, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. The First World War is spreading across Europe, and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide. There, Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. When Armen leaves Aleppo to join the British Army in Egypt, he begins to write Elizabeth letters, and comes to realize that he has fallen in love with the wealthy, young American woman who is so different from the wife he lost.Flash forward to the present, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in suburban New York. Although her grandparents' ornate Pelham home was affectionately nicknamed the "Ottoman Annex," Laura has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought. But when an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura's grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family's history that reveals love, loss-and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 17, 2012
    ISBN9780307917386
    Unavailable
    The Sandcastle Girls: A Novel
    Author

    Chris Bohjalian

    Chris Bohjalian is the author of twelve novels, including the New York Times bestsellers, Secrets of Eden, The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and Midwives.  His work has been translated into twenty-six languages.  He lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter.   Visit him at www.chrisbohjalian.com or www.facebook.com .

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    Reviews for The Sandcastle Girls

    4/5

    564 ratings102 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I loved this. I've read almost all of CB's books, and this is one of my favorites.
    • 5/5
      The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian; (5*)I have come to love and trust this author's works. He never disappoints. In this outing he tells the tale of one family's history throughout the Armenian Holocaust. It is a vivid, violent and dark novel but with the subject matter and this author, how could it not be? He had me drawn in from the first few pages.I came to love the child in the story (I felt involved with all of the primary characters) and when the end came I wanted to read on and on to learn where this journey took her. But alas, it was not to be. Five stars and highly recommended for those who want and need to learn from the past.
    • 5/5
      WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!

      I started this book a few days ago and I have to tell you that I am only able to read it in small bites. The book is so good and so very disturbing that I can feel myself becoming an emotional wreck! It has taken me about 10 days to get through this book. Not because it wasn't good, but because it is just THAT good. I can actually say for the first time in a very long time; I savored every single word of this book.

      The subject of the book is the Armenian Genocide in Aleppo and the Ottoman Empire of 1915 and 1916. I am embarrassed to say that I had no idea that this even happened. How can humans do this to other humans? How is it that someone can feel so far superior to someone else that it is OK to commit these despicable acts?

      I'm not sure if I am going to be able to express my feelings about the journey that this book and this author has taken me on. The characters; Elizabeth, Armen, Laura, Hatoun, Nevert, Helmut, Eric and Orhan. Each one of these characters (and more) made such an impact in the story. At times, I felt that I was right there beside each of them urging them on or saying "No, please don't do that or please don't go down that alley". Many times, their actions would take my breath away.

      This is an absolute MUST read for everyone. It is disturbing, yes, but the writing is so *ing good (hows that for expressing myself).

      Thanks Chris for another wonderful journey.

      I have been fortunate to receive this book from Doubleday through Net Galley as an ARC.
    • 5/5
      Great book told by a great storyteller. The story shifted between the present day of a female novelist, who researched the circumstances in which her Bostonian grandmother met and later married her Armenian grandfather. Great book told by a great storyteller. The story shifted between the present day of a female novelist, who researched the circumstances in which her Bostonian grandmother met and later married her Armenian grandfather. The grandmother had traveled with her father to Syria in 1915 for philanthropic work, penning letters home to try to convey the humanitarian crisis of the forced deportation and mass killings of Armenians. She and her father stayed with the American consul and she assisted an orphan and an Armenian woman who lost her family. While there, she met the man who would eventually become her husband. He lost a child and wife (though this later came out that she survived, saw him later with the American woman, and tried to kill herself; she succumbed to her injuries). The book conveyed the secrecy with which the genocide was treated and how difficult it was to get word out of the region to other parts of the world about what was really happening. It also communicated how some countries were aware of the depth and breadth of the tragedy, yet chose to feign ignorance. A powerful story.
    • 4/5
      Very good!
    • 4/5
      Wonderful story!
    • 4/5
      Read a long time ago - Girl convinces father to take her to help refugees in Aleppo, Syria during the Armenian genocide during WWI - she falls in love with a soldier (?) who believes his wife and child are dead.
    • 4/5
      I have not read anything else by Chris Bohjalian but if this book is an indicator of the rest of his oevre then I will be reading more. I read this book because it was picked by my book club to read for October 2017. That's the great thing about belonging to a book club. You get introduced to books you would probably never pick up otherwise.In 1915 a father and his daughter travelled from Boston to Aleppo, Syria to take aid to Armenians who were being persecuted by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The Armenians were Christian but were ruled by the Muslim Ottoman Empire, When World War I broke out the Turks were allied with the Germans but some Armenians volunteered with the Russian army. The Turks instituted a policy of arresting and killing Armenian males and forcing the women, children and elderly to walk through the desert to Syria. The people who made it to Aleppo were in dire need of food, clothing, shelter and medical care. Mr. Endicott was a wealthy banker and his daughter, Elizabeth, was a recent college graduate who had received a crash course in nursing in Boston. The Friends of Armenia in Boston had raised funds to send food and medical aid to Aleppo and the Endicotts were there to make sure it reached the people in need. They were assissted in Aleppo by the American consul, two American doctors and a female missionary. The help they could give was very little in face of the need but they were determined to do what they could. One Armenian male, a railway engineer named Armen, was able to reach Aleppo relatively unscathed because he was helped by two German engineers. Armen had been separated from his wife and infant daughter in Armenia and he knew that they had been deported to Syria. Although he believed they were dead he was hoping to find someone who knew what had happened to them so he could find some closure. Elizabeth and Armen met in Aleppo and were instantly attracted to each other. Armen, however, felt that he could better serve his family and his country by volunteering with the British forces so he left Aleppo to try to get to Egypt. He and Elizabeth wrote to each other although the war made delivery of their correspondence problematic. The letters that got through cemented their feelings for each other. We know from the modern narrator of their story, who is their granddaughter, that they did reconnect, marry and live to old age but there are aspects to their love story that were family secrets until the granddaughter started researching. One of the clues was a photograph taken by the two German engineers who had befriended Armen. These two decided to document the condition of the Armenians who reached Aleppo by taking hundreds of photos. When their superiors found out the two were shipped to Gallipoli and their photographic plates were confiscated. The story of how their photographs were saved and taken to America forms part of this novel.Looking at the pictures taken of the Armenians in 1915 gives a feeling of deja vu. One hundred years later it is Syrians risking their lives to flee killing and warfare and we see pictures every night on the TV news. Plus ca change...
    • 5/5
      The author uses the Armenian Genocide as the setting for his historical novel. During WWI, the Ottoman Empire sought the extermination of the Armenians within their homeland, which would be today part of Turkey. Men were massacred or died in forced labor. Many women and children died on death marches through the Syrian desert.

      The novel involves two timelines. The first is a love story between two with very different backgrounds. Elizabeth Endicott, a young woman from a wealthy Bostonian family, travels with the Friends of Armenia to what is currently Aleppo, Syria, to provide humanitarian aid to woman and children deportees. Shortly after her arrival she meets an Armenian engineer working with the German army, who lost his wife and daughter. During the next several years the two correspond while she remains in Allepo and he enlists with the British army to fight the Turks at Gallipoli. The second timeline involves Laura, the couples' granddaughter, a writer, who seeks to learn more about her grandparents beginnings and her Armenian heritage.

      Chris Bohjalian, a favorite author of mine, has used a variety of genres, to highlight specific social issues. His characters, especially the primary ones, are developed well. I became emotionally involved in this novel and learned much regarding another historical event of "man's humanity against man."
    • 4/5
      A story centered on a genocide that so few of us know. Mr. Bohjalian does a wonderful job of weaving in facts with his storytelling (although I will be honest, it started out super slow and confusing to me - which is why it only got 4 stars). The characters are so life like and the story so intermixed with historical accuracy that it is hard to believe it is not a true story.
    • 3/5
      Laura undertakes a journey of discovery when she sees a photo of her grandmother for a museum exhibit. It leads her to the Armenian genocide and her grandparents story there.
    • 4/5
      when I think of this book, all that comes to me is Karine. My heart aches for her suffering and yes there were millions but, they are all of them in the end... Karine.This is a heartbreaking story of a genocide I was not familiar with and for that reason alone a miracle and blessing Chris has written about it. This is a story no one should ever forget about, and on that note...This is a story about a young woman in 1915, Elizabeth Endicott who is traveling with her father to Aleppo to assist with the Armenian league of America with the thousands of refugees flooding into Syria from Turkey where a mass genocide is occurring.there are many intertwining stories in this book but the main one is about the love between Elizabeth, Armen and Karine It is in Aleppo that Elizabeth meets Armen, an Armenian engineer who has lost his wife and young daughter in the carnage. They begin tentatively to correspond when Armen goes to Egypt to join the British army and they slowly through their letters fall in love.This story will grab you by the short hairs and not let you go until you are either in tears or at the end of the book.
    • 4/5
      The story of the least know genocide of all time - the Armenian Genocide that took place during the first world war. This novel is told through two strong female characters: the young Bostonian who finds herself in the desert confronting horrors she could not have imagined, and her grand daughter many years later who is researching her family's history. This is a story about helplessness before massive cruelty and secrets that must be taken to the grave.
    • 4/5
      Found this book interesting as it was about a period in history that I knew nothing about. Felt the ending could have been stronger.
    • 4/5
      The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian is historical fiction about an author who tries to find information about her grandparents during the Armenian genocide done by the Turks in 1915. I had no knowledge of this. 1.5 million Armenians were killed and starved in the deserts and near Aleppo. There are a variety of characters for different points of view: Elizabeth and her father are the wealthy Bostonians to help out, Armed the aremenian who has lost his wife and child, Nevart and Hatoun, Armenians who lost their families. Many of the scenes are pretty horrific and there are times where the Germans are heavily involved as allies of the Turks so it feels like a foreshadow of the Holocaust just a few decades later. I also think of bombed out Aleppo right now and how that city has to have some of the worst history for violence.This is my work book club pick so I’m interested to discuss and see if anyone else had knowledge of this time in history before reading the book.
    • 4/5
      Although basically a love story, this book is richly seeped in historical fact exposing the atrocities that the Armenians had to endure at the hands of the Turks. While there are hundreds of books about the Jewish Holocaust, this is the first book I've read about the Armenian genocide of 1915. At times this book is extremely violent and brutal, it is also a poignant, compelling story about a period in time that is not widely known.
    • 1/5
      Didn't finish. I usually like Bohjalian's books, so I waived my "one day" rule -- usually, if I have doubts about a book, I'll read on it for a day (usually 2-3 hours total) and if it doesn't grab me, it's gone. (Hey -- I'm old. I'm not going to live long enough to read every book ever written, so I've become choosy.) In consideration of his past performances, Bohjalian got an extra day's read.

      I just couldn't get past the narrative form, jumping from 1915 Syria to contemporary American with multiple stops in between, and the only signpost for the reader was the change from third-person to first-person narrative. Frankly, I kept wishing the first-person narrator would just get the hell out of the way and let the 1915 characters tell the story.

      (Not sure why the database says I read this twice. I didn't but can't see how to correct it.)
    • 4/5
      This was a little hard to follow along as an audiobook as it switched between two points of view but didn't give you any warning it was happening. I think audiobooks should be read slightly different with giving warnings when the POV switches. Other than that this is a beautifully written story.
    • 5/5
      Wow. I often mention how odd it is to start a Netgalley book without easy access to the synopsis; unless I know the publisher or author works in a specific genre, I'm at a loss, having read the book description before requesting it and then, being me, having promptly forgotten it among the other few dozen I asked for. It's drastically changed my reading habits, this Kindle/Netgalley combo. So, Sandcastle Girls: sounds like a beach book!It's not. It's really not.One of the two threads of the book could almost fit into that subgenre. The book is couched as the first-person narrative of Laura, a woman who in her forties begins an investigation into the experiences of her parents and grandparents – her paternal grandparents having been witnesses to the “The Slaughter You Know Next to Nothing About”: the genocide of Armenians by Turkey. The book is partly first-person past tense from her point of view, and partly third-person present tense from the angle of the grandparents and some of those who intersect with them in 1915. Laura's story – her first love and the tension of the boy's Turkish heritage that managed to taint it even when neither teen cared about the history, and her present-day commonplace travails and investigations – might have stood alone as a light read, well-written and enjoyable for its wry and warm tone. The love story of her grandparents might, if glanced at quickly, have passed as a romance novel if set against a vague and menacing background. Either of these books could have been the one that was written. Neither was, not entirely.Reading an e-book, I find, is more and more like reading in a vacuum. It's more difficult to return to the beginning, to the title page or copyright page (or at least it is on my Kindle), and it's not an option to simply turn the book around and read the author's name. I admit to a moment of adjustment at reaching the end and the acknowledgements and finding that this was, start to finish, a work of historical fiction: the narrator was not the writer. Chalk it up to sheer skill that I started thinking she might be by the end.It's not a true story in its specifics: there was no moment when a woman named Laura Petrosian, stood in her kitchen trying to juggle the itineraries and menus of her active family and received a fateful telephone call from a friend. There never was a young woman named Elizabeth Endicott who went with her father from Nob Hill to Aleppo, Syria, as part of a contingency from the Friends of Armenia, aiming to help refugees of the genocide of which some few bits of news have leaked out despite Turkey's iron grip. There never was a young Armenian engineer named Armen Petrosian who was in Aleppo at the same time trying to determine how his life could or would go on after his wife and baby daughter were murdered with so many thousands of others, who fell abruptly and hopelessly in love with Elizabeth, and she with him.There is now.The story is fiction, the details of the story not fact – but the story is very, very true. Laura's family history borrows liberally from Chris Bohajalian's (and even without his notes I would now know what the "-ian" at the end of his name means). There were horribly misnamed "refugee camps" in Aleppo, in Van and its surrounds. There is a truth underlying this tale which broke my heart. The massacre no one knows about – I didn't. And the more time that passes since I finished this book, the more anger builds up in me that I never heard of this atrocity before. How can it be that the slaughter of very nearly an entire people has not been shouted from the rooftops – or, at least, from the front of every history classroom? There was a PBS documentary in 2006, which I don't even remember being promoted. Come to find out there were several missionaries originally from Connecticut – New Britain and Hartford – who were murdered early on in the atrocities (which went on for decades without anyone really doing much to stop it). Again, I can't believe I've never heard of this. There was so much that startled me about the history. The Turks were allies of the Germans in WWI – but the Germans as represented in this book were shocked and disapproving of what was going on in Armenia and Syria (where there is, right now, a whole new genocide taking place), if quietly so for fear of alienating their ally. Yet some of the means and methods and motivations of the slaughter were echoed some twenty-five years later as Jews and so many others began disappearing under Germany. There was the use of train cars – packed train cars – to transport huge numbers to their fates. There was the wholesale appropriation and/or destruction of the property of those being exterminated; the initial targeting of the intelligentsia; the expedient technique of lining up naked men of the objectionable group along the edge of a pre-dug pit, and then gunning them down so that they fell tidily into said mass grave. Is this where Hitler got some of his inspiration? Were there German soldiers on the sidelines who did not disapprove, but in fact took notes? Another moment of realization was a fitting together of puzzle pieces, at a mention that it was Muslim Kurds doing a great deal of the killing. Wait, I thought – the same Kurds who faced considerable persecution of their own not so long ago? It's too grim and horrible to be called irony. "I found myself focused on children and food. Because of the Proustian madeleines from my own childhood, this seemed a viable entry into a story that might otherwise be one mind-numbing horror after another." – From the author's blog. This history might have been merely horrible in another writer's hands, some catalogue of horrors and grisly detail. Anyone could recite the evils being done. Another writer might have trivialized the tragedy by tacking a romance onto it. What Chris Bojahalian did with The Sandcastle Girls, with Elizabeth and Armen and Hatoun and Nevart and Karine, and with Laura, was to make it real, and personal, and utterly unforgettable.
    • 4/5
      Read this for my local library fiction book group and I love books that share history. Although this is a work of fiction, it is based on a little known history of the Armenian genocide that took place in Aleppo Syria in 1915. The novel covers this history and present day of a woman trying to decipher the story of her grandparents and her journey to find the truth.

      I enjoyed the story and look to learn more about the history of the story. The author did not disappoint!
    • 4/5
      when I think of this book, all that comes to me is Karine. My heart aches for her suffering and yes there were millions but, they are all of them in the end... Karine.This is a heartbreaking story of a genocide I was not familiar with and for that reason alone a miracle and blessing Chris has written about it. This is a story no one should ever forget about, and on that note...This is a story about a young woman in 1915, Elizabeth Endicott who is traveling with her father to Aleppo to assist with the Armenian league of America with the thousands of refugees flooding into Syria from Turkey where a mass genocide is occurring.there are many intertwining stories in this book but the main one is about the love between Elizabeth, Armen and Karine It is in Aleppo that Elizabeth meets Armen, an Armenian engineer who has lost his wife and young daughter in the carnage. They begin tentatively to correspond when Armen goes to Egypt to join the British army and they slowly through their letters fall in love.This story will grab you by the short hairs and not let you go until you are either in tears or at the end of the book.
    • 4/5
      I have come to the conclusion that I will measure my like or dislike or lukewarm reaction to a book is how long it takes me to read it. I try and find time in the middle of the day, I wake up in the middle of the night. I just can't wait to find time to read! This is how it was with The Sandcastle girls. At times shocking and hard to read, violent and makes you want to look away but an intriguing and engaging story about a time in history I had no idea took place. The slaughter of a million and a half Armenian during WWI. Fascinating.
    • 3/5
      A book of historical fiction that tell the haunting details of the Armenian genocide in 1915-1916 period. It is a period in history that i knew nothing about. The characters in this story were well developed.
    • 4/5
      Very graphic novel about a time during WW1 that I never knew about. Hard to read at times, but a good story.
    • 4/5
      The Sandcastle Girls tells the story of the contemporary narrator's grandparents who met in Armenia during WWI and the Armenian genocide. I enjoyed the book but I didn't find the story as "searing" as the book flap led me to believe. There is a secret revealed near the end that was quite tragic, but the build-up to the secret led me to expect something more than what it turned out to be. Overall, an enjoyable novel but not stand-out.
    • 3/5
      Fascinating story that tells the haunting details of the Armenian genocide. I knew nothing about this period of history and it is devastating. I thought the book was well written and loved the fictional characters from the historical period but found the jumping from present time narrator reflecting back to the past difficult at times to follow.Nevertheless glad the author wrote such a compelling book about a time in history that is obviously not well publicized.
    • 4/5
      Very good story about a period of history I'd never heard of. Called "the slaughter you know next to nothing about" in this novel, it's the story of Armenian genocide during WWI. One to one and a half million Armenians were killed. Many of the women and children's in forced marches thru the desert to "refugee" camps.The story is told from 1915 by Elizabeth who has come from Boston to help the victims, and current day by Laura a novelist who is related to Elizabeth by marriage.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book in spite of a bit too much coincidence at the ending. The Armenian genocide is surely one of the world's most horrible crimes and yet it is hardly recognized. It is said that history is told by the victors and in this case, there really weren't any victors: the Ottoman Empire disintegrated and the Armenians scattered. This story is actually set in Aleppo Syria where thousands of Armenians are driven into resettlement camps after being forced out of Turkey by the Turks. WWI finds the Germans fighting on the side of the Turks. An American doctor of Armenian descent and his daughter Elizabeth, a recent graduate of Mt. Holyoke, go to Aleppo to help provide medical relief to the refugees. They stay in the American consulate, a palace compared to the dwellings of Aleppo. Elizabeth soon hardens herself to the harsh surroundings and meets Armen Petrosian, an Armenian engineer. Elizabeth and Armen eventually become the great grandparents of the narrator. Switching from contemporary times and the narrator's search for information and the early 1900's, the story gradually unfolds set in the midst of the horrid circumstances of the Armenian refugees. Central to the story is a series of photographs of the refugees taken by German engineers which are eventually smuggled out of the country making the world aware of the atrocities. I love Bohjalian's historical fiction (wasn't as fond of his contemporary stories), and this was compelling and interesting leading me to read much more about Armenia and the genocide. The Turks feared the Armenians were conspiring with the Russians during the war; thus their fear. Most of the Armenians are Christian, the Turks Muslims; however, very little is made of the religious issues. The background of WWI provides the setting.I did feel as if Bohjalian's purpose was really to tell the story of the genocide and he created characters to make it personal. The ending involves a scene where Elizabeth meets Armen's first wife, Karine, who supposedly died in the dreadful march across the desert from Armenia to Allepo. The ending is just a bit too pat, but minor weakness in a powerful story of a dreadful time in history that is virtually unknown.
    • 4/5
      Well written and interesting book about a genocide that not many people have heard about. Lots of traveling back and forth from modern day to early 1900's when Armenians were being wiped out. Graphic, real, not for our high schoolers but for other students of history may be an interesting addition.
    • 4/5
      If you know nothing about the Armenian genocide, which began around the beginning of World War I, before the United States entered the war, you'll know enough after reading THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS to want to know more.That's what good books do: while they entertain, they also teach, and they intrigue us enough to look up further information. And this is a really good book.THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS is two stories: one, the story that Laura, a writer, tells in first person about her research for a book about her grandparents, survivors of the Armenian genocide, and, two, the story she writes along with the secret she uncovers.You may find that the parts of the book that tell of Laura's research are a relief after you read the other parts that describe the Armenian genocide. That is because, although THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS is fiction, the Armenian genocide is real horror. In the absence of actual pictures, Chris Bohjalian is sometimes graphic enough that pictures of the genocide will be in your head.The story of Laura's grandparents, though, is not horrible. It's a love story in the midst of horror that some countries, the United States included, have yet to OFFICIALLY recognize as genocide. Why? Perhaps because some of the Armenians who the Turks accidentally left alive were not passive.