The Verdun Affair

Written by Nick Dybek

Narrated by Jacques Roy

Across a continent still reeling from World War I, a “ravishingly beautiful” (Paula McClain) story about a love affair between two Americans and the lie that changes everything.

France, 1921—Tom, a young American orphaned in World War I, is working at an ossuary in Verdun, helping priests comfort families seeking answers about their loved ones. But nothing in his past—not his rough-and-tumble Chicago childhood nor his experiences driving ambulances across French battlefields—can prepare Tom for the arrival of Sarah Hagen. From the moment he sees her, a young woman in a blue dress desperate for news of her missing husband, he knows he will help her in any way he can.

As their affair takes them across a fractured Europe, Tom and Sarah reckon with the ways extraordinary circumstances impact the lives of ordinary people. They eventually part but when news of an amnesiac soldier in Naples reaches Tom in Paris, he sets off, only to find Sarah there, hopeful as ever, along with an Austrian journalist named Paul who has his own agenda. Years later, a chance encounter with Paul forces Tom, now a screenwriter in Hollywood, to confront his past—and the woman he’s never been able to forget.

A page-turning, vividly imagined, and deeply romantic novel about love and identity, truth and consequences, The Verdun Affair is a “literary romance…[that] unravels a love triangle and its players’ secrets” (Los Angeles Times). It will transport you to another place and time while asking the question: Who are you in a world you no longer recognize?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Jun 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781508255017

Nick Dybek

Nick Dybek is a recipient of a Granta New Voices selection, a Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award, and a Maytag Fellowship. He received a BA from the University of Michigan and an MFA from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He teaches at Oregon State University. He is the author of When Captain Flint Was Still a Good Man and The Verdun Affair.

Reviews for The Verdun Affair

[lbswiener · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Verdun Affair takes place during WW1 and 1950s southern California. Going back and forth in time was not difficult to follow. I liked the California part, as this is where I live so I tried to imagine what it must have been like with no traffic and just farms and horse ranches. The parts that took place in Europe, I also tried to imagine what the countries were like because the descriptions were easy to follow. I did not like the ending. It just ended with one wanting the ends to tie up neatly. Life is not tidy so in order to be like real life it could not end on a happy note with everything neatly tied together. Therefore, I only gave the book three stars.