Paris Shadows, 1943

In Nazi-occupied Paris, Helaine, a young Jewish woman, is swept up in a police raid and herded with other women through the city's darkened streets. The group, all marked by yellow stars, is loaded into a truck and delivered not to a concentration camp, but to the grand department store Lévitan, now repurposed as a labor camp. Here, Jews are forced to sort and sell the belongings of other deported Jews, a cruel twist of fate that blurs the line between victim and witness. Helaine's world, once defined by privilege and parental protection, is now reduced to survival, uncertainty, and the hope that her missing husband, Gabriel, might still be alive.

Postwar Puzzles, 1953

Eight years after the war, Louise, a British wife and mother, struggles with the monotony and emotional distance of her marriage to Joe, a haunted veteran. Her days are filled with domestic routines and part-time work at a secondhand shop, but she is unsettled by memories of her wartime service and the mysterious death of her friend Franny. When Louise discovers a half-heart necklace in a crate from Paris, she is jolted back into the unresolved mysteries of her past, setting her on a quest for answers that will take her from England to France.

The Necklace's Secret

The discovery of the necklace—a Mizpah charm, split in two and inscribed with "watch" and "me"—becomes the catalyst for Louise's journey. She is convinced it is the same necklace she saw in Germany during the war, given to Franny by a French cellist in a POW camp. As Louise investigates its origins, she learns the necklace was not sold at Lévitan, but may have been hidden there by a prisoner. The locket, and the microfilm it contains, are keys to a larger secret, one that connects the fates of Helaine, Gabriel, and Franny.

Helaine's Gilded Cage

Helaine's early life is marked by wealth and overprotection after a childhood illness. Confined to her family's Paris home, she yearns for freedom and connection. Her world expands when she meets Gabriel, a passionate cellist, and defies her parents to marry him. Their love is tested by war, poverty, and the growing threat to Jews in France. Helaine's journey from sheltered daughter to survivor is shaped by her longing for agency and the pain of separation from her family and husband.

Love and War's Divide

Helaine and Gabriel's marriage is a haven amid the chaos of occupation, but their differences—religion, class, and the pressures of war—create tension. Gabriel, half-English and a musician, is drawn into resistance activities, while Helaine faces increasing danger as a Jew. When Gabriel is forced to tour Germany, their separation becomes a crucible for both, and rumors of collaboration threaten to destroy the trust between them. Helaine's struggle is not just for survival, but for the truth about the man she loves.

Red Cross Convoys

During the war, Louise volunteers for the Red Cross, joining convoys delivering aid to POW camps in France and Germany. She befriends Franny, a glamorous actress secretly helping prisoners escape. Together, they witness the suffering of POWs and the moral compromises of humanitarian work. Louise's growing attraction to her superior, Ian, and her guilt over Franny's death, haunt her long after the war. The Red Cross's limitations and complicity become a central theme, as does the power and peril of bearing witness.

Lévitan: Store of Sorrows

Lévitan, once a symbol of Parisian luxury, becomes a surreal prison where Jewish prisoners sort the plunder of their own people. Helaine, assigned to the shop floor, is forced to sell goods to German officers, including items from her own family. The camp's relative privileges are a bitter comfort, as deportations to Drancy and the east loom. Acts of sabotage and small resistances offer fleeting hope, but the threat of betrayal and liquidation is ever-present. The store's history, largely forgotten, is a microcosm of the Holocaust's bureaucratic cruelty.

Franny's Fatal Mission

Franny's role as a performer and secret resistance agent brings her into contact with Gabriel, her estranged brother, in a German camp. Entrusted with the locket and its hidden message, Franny is killed in a suspicious hit-and-run before she can deliver it. Louise, wracked with guilt for refusing to help, suspects foul play, but is silenced and sent home by Ian and the Red Cross. Franny's death is the emotional and narrative fulcrum, linking the personal and political betrayals at the heart of the story.

Collaborators and Resisters

The novel explores the ambiguous roles of collaborators, resisters, and bystanders. Gabriel is accused of collaboration for performing for the Germans, but is in fact gathering intelligence. Ian, the trusted Red Cross leader, is revealed as a double agent, passing information to the enemy and implicated in Franny's death. Helaine's fellow prisoners, and even her friend Isa, must make impossible choices to survive. The story interrogates the myth of clear-cut heroism, showing how war distorts morality and memory.

Lost and Found in Paris

In 1953, Louise travels to Paris, retracing the path of the necklace and seeking answers about Franny's death. She uncovers the hidden history of Lévitan, meets survivors, and discovers Helaine's journal in the attic dormitory. With Joe's support, she pieces together the connection between the locket, Gabriel, and Franny. The microfilm inside the locket reveals evidence of Ian's treachery. Louise's investigation is both a personal reckoning and an act of historical recovery.

The Truth in Two Halves

Louise and Joe find Helaine and Gabriel, now living quietly in Paris. The two halves of the locket—and the stories of their owners—are finally reunited. Gabriel explains the locket's purpose: to warn Helaine and expose a traitor. The photograph on the microfilm implicates Ian as a double agent and Franny's killer. The truth, long buried, is brought to light, and Ian is eventually arrested. The survivors confront the cost of silence and the necessity of bearing witness.

Liberation and New Beginnings

As the Allies approach Paris, Helaine and her friend Miriam attempt a desperate escape from Lévitan. Miriam sacrifices herself so Helaine can survive. After liberation, Helaine learns of her mother's death and Gabriel's presumed loss, but discovers she is pregnant. Against all odds, she and Gabriel are reunited in a displaced persons camp, and they begin to build a new life together. The story honors the resilience of those who endured and the possibility of healing after unimaginable loss.

Healing, Home, and Hope

Back in England, Louise starts a new career as a private investigator, helping others find lost loved ones and truths from the war. Her marriage with Joe, once strained by silence and trauma, is renewed through honesty and shared purpose. They reconnect with their children and Louise's estranged mother, forging a future shaped by the lessons of the past. The novel ends with a sense of hope: that by facing history, telling stories, and choosing connection, healing is possible.

Characters

Helaine Weil Lemarque

Helaine is a Parisian Jew whose childhood illness leads to overprotection and isolation. Her marriage to Gabriel is an act of rebellion and longing for freedom. Throughout the war, she is forced to confront the limits of privilege, the pain of estrangement from her family, and the terror of Nazi persecution. In Lévitan, she evolves from a passive victim to an active survivor, risking escape and ultimately reuniting with Gabriel. Her psychological journey is one of claiming her own story and strength, even as she mourns profound losses.

Louise Burns (née Emmons)

Louise is a British woman whose wartime service with the Red Cross leaves her with unresolved trauma and guilt over her friend Franny's death. In 1953, she is restless in her domestic life, yearning for meaning and closure. Her investigation into the necklace and Franny's fate is both a quest for justice and self-understanding. Louise's relationships—with Joe, Ian, and her children—are marked by the struggle to communicate across the divides of experience and pain. Her arc is one of transformation from passive witness to active truth-teller and healer.

Gabriel Lemarque (later Weil)

Gabriel is a half-English, half-French cellist whose love for Helaine defies social and religious boundaries. Accused of collaboration for performing for the Germans, he is in fact a resistance agent, using his position to gather intelligence. His separation from Helaine and imprisonment test his loyalty and hope. Gabriel's relationship with his sister Franny is central, and his grief over her death is profound. He represents the complexity of resistance and the cost of secrecy.

Joe Burns

Joe is Louise's husband, a British army veteran scarred by years of combat. His emotional withdrawal and nightmares create distance in his marriage, but he is fundamentally kind and loyal. Joe's journey is one of learning to confront his trauma, support Louise's quest, and reclaim his role as partner and father. His willingness to join Louise in Paris marks a turning point in their relationship, symbolizing the possibility of healing through vulnerability and shared purpose.

Franny Beck

Franny is a celebrated actress and singer who uses her performances in POW camps as cover for resistance work, including helping prisoners escape. She is Gabriel's estranged sister, and their reunion in the camp is bittersweet. Franny's death—ostensibly an accident, but in fact a murder to silence her—haunts Louise and drives the novel's central mystery. Franny embodies courage, compassion, and the tragic cost of war.

Ian Shipley

Ian is Louise's Red Cross superior, whose competence and charisma mask a double life as a British government agent and German collaborator. His relationship with Louise is fraught with attraction, betrayal, and moral ambiguity. Ian's role in Franny's death and his efforts to cover up his crimes make him the novel's most complex antagonist, representing the dangers of divided loyalties and institutional complicity.

Miriam

Miriam is an older Jewish woman imprisoned with Helaine at Lévitan. She becomes a surrogate mother and guide, teaching Helaine the rules of survival and resistance. Miriam's determination to escape, even as her health fails, and her ultimate sacrifice for Helaine, highlight the themes of solidarity and loss. Her presence anchors Helaine's psychological growth.

Isa

Isa is Helaine's friend and fellow gardener in Montmartre. Her willingness to help is tested by fear and the shifting dangers of occupation. Isa's actions—sometimes supportive, sometimes self-protective—reflect the difficult choices faced by ordinary people under tyranny. Her efforts to reconnect Helaine and Gabriel are crucial to the story's resolution.

Madame Dupree

Madame Dupree is the elderly pharmacist whose family's shop faces Lévitan. She provides Louise with crucial information about the store's history and the fate of its prisoners. Her guilt over her own limitations during the war, and her willingness to help in the present, illustrate the burdens and possibilities of postwar memory.

Marcel

Marcel is a fellow musician and resistance member in the POW camp. After Franny's death, he ensures the locket and its hidden message are delivered, playing a key role in exposing Ian's treachery. Marcel's actions demonstrate the quiet heroism and networks of trust that underpinned survival and resistance.

Plot Devices

Dual Timeline Structure

The novel alternates between Helaine's wartime experiences and Louise's postwar investigation, creating suspense and deepening emotional resonance. This structure allows the reader to see the consequences of choices across time, and to experience the slow uncovering of secrets. The convergence of the two timelines in the final chapters provides catharsis and closure.

The Mizpah Necklace

The split locket is both a literal object and a metaphor for divided lives and hidden connections. Its journey—from Gabriel to Franny, from Lévitan to England, and finally to Helaine—mirrors the characters' quests for reunion and understanding. The microfilm hidden inside transforms the necklace into a vessel of resistance and evidence, driving the plot and linking personal and political stakes.

Foreshadowing and Red Herrings

Early references to the necklace, Franny's secretive behavior, and rumors of collaboration set up questions that are only answered late in the novel. The suspicion cast on Gabriel, the ambiguity of Ian's motives, and the uncertainty about Franny's death keep the reader—and Louise—off balance, heightening the impact of the final revelations.

The Forgotten Camp

The use of a real but little-known Parisian department store as a labor camp grounds the novel in historical specificity and serves as a powerful symbol of the Holocaust's bureaucratic and psychological violence. The camp's erasure from memory, and the recovery of its stories, reflect the novel's themes of remembrance and the dangers of forgetting.

Letters, Journals, and Testimony

Helaine's journal, Louise's letters, and the testimonies of survivors are central to the plot and its resolution. These documents are both clues in the mystery and acts of self-assertion, reclaiming agency from the forces that sought to silence and erase. The act of writing becomes a form of survival and resistance.

Analysis

Last Twilight in Paris is a moving exploration of the intersections between personal trauma, historical atrocity, and the search for truth. By weaving together the stories of Helaine and Louise—two women separated by time, faith, and circumstance—Pam Jenoff illuminates the ways in which the past continues to shape the present, and how the act of bearing witness is both a burden and a necessity. The novel interrogates the myth of clear-cut heroism, showing how survival often requires compromise, and how the lines between victim, bystander, and perpetrator are blurred by war. Through the device of the Mizpah necklace, Jenoff connects the intimate and the political, revealing how small acts—of love, resistance, or betrayal—can have far-reaching consequences. The story's ultimate message is one of hope: that healing is possible when we confront the truth, honor the stories of the lost, and choose connection over silence. In a world still grappling with the legacies of war and injustice, Last Twilight in Paris is a testament to the power of memory, the necessity of telling difficult stories, and the enduring strength of the human spirit.

Last updated: May 1, 2025