cover image Love in the Tempest of History: A French Resistance Story

Love in the Tempest of History: A French Resistance Story

Aude Yung-de Prevaux, Aude Yung-De Prevaux. Free Press, $23 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-7432-0194-0

Spies for the French Resistance during WWII, Jacques and Lotka de Pr vaux were awarded seven medals and honors for their efforts, which included providing intelligence that led to the Normandy Invasion. They were executed by the Nazis when their daughter, the author, was an infant. She was raised by a paternal uncle and aunt, and the true identity of her parents was kept from her. Then, in 1966, when Yung-de Pr vaux was 23, an elderly man in the Biblioth que Nationale in Paris saw her writing her name down and blurted out her family history. And what a history: Jacques descended from aristocrats and from a long line of Catholics who counted Joan of Arc's older brother as a forebear. Lotka was a stunning Polish Jew who came to Paris to study fashion and captured Jacques's heart. Even before he'd begun divorce proceedings against his first wife, Jacques was writing Lotka letters brimming with passion. Unfortunately, that's about all the passion readers are likely to find in these pages. A journalist, Yung-de Pr vaux tells her parents' story with a surprising professional detachment. (Writing about her christening, she refers to herself as ""little Aude de Pr vaux."") There are lots of details about the couple's history and spy work and ships (Jacques was a naval officer), but for a book with ""love"" and ""tempest"" in the title, this one is frustratingly devoid of emotion. (Apr.)