The Autobiography of Corrine Bernard

Corrine Bernard, the narrator of this finely crafted companion piece to Novak’s Do Not Find Me (2016), was born in Paris the night of June 13, 1940, the day before the Nazis occupied the city. As a “skinny, scrappy girl, wild-eyed and watchful,” Corrine endures wartime poverty. When she’s 17, she escapes to New York City, where she takes acting classes and within a year marries Charles Bernard, a wealthy, sadistic businessman who abuses her. As she reveals, “He didn’t care if I loved him, only that I maintained my part in his own particular theater… Charles hated my theater, but there he was, ever performing in his own.” Corinne leaves Charles, but a rash act puts the police on her trail, forcing her to flee the country. She spends decades in exile—in Montreal, London, Copenhagen, and the wild isolation of Newfoundland—before eventually returning to New York. Eloquent, graceful prose sweeps the reader along in this immensely satisfying novel about choices that alter a life. (Aug.)