Village of Secrets

Brilliant… It is refreshing to read a book that so confidently abandons the rhetoric of heroism and tries to see its subjects for who they were… Moorehead has had to master a huge amount of background material, and she pulls it off with skill and a remarkable lightness of touch – Keith Lowe * Mail on Sunday *
Riven with complexity… Stories of this weight could occupy several volumes and would still disorientate with all the possibilities – both altruistic and malevolent – of human nature – Sinclair Mckay * Telegraph *
Vivid…an unsparing yet balanced account of the Vichy years…we need books like this to make it impossible for us to forget. – Alan Judd * Spectator *
An especially poignant story… enthralling and meticulous book… amidst the horror of the Holocaust – and such horror is painfully evident in the lives of those left behind – this book shows that human kindness endured undimmed by the propaganda, the threats of violence and the vast rewards on offer for submitting to the will of Nazis – Harry Hodges * Daily Express *
Moorehead draws vivid portraits of those who helped…The emotional heart of the book beats in the children’s stories…The story does not end with Liberation. Moorehead, a biographer and historian, scrupulously records the emotional fallout from the children’s experiences – Edward Stourton * The Times *
A lot is known about the authors of this unhuman cruelty, the Nazi overlords and their villainous Vichy accomplices. Less well-documented are the heroes, the ordinary, decent people, who put their lives at risk by hiding and saving Jews from death camps. Village of Secrets is an impressive attempt to set straight the record, an uplifting tale of courage and morality…Moorehead travelled the world interviewing survivors and had access to archives that few have seen – Matthew Campbell * The Sunday Times *
Compelling and authoritative…latterly, Moorehead writes, there has been an emphasis on ‘minimising collaborators and celebrating resisters’. She sets that record straight – Sue Gaisford * Financial Times *
Moorehead is not the first to have written of this remarkable safe enclave, but she has investigated the most thoroughly, tracking down survivors among the protectors and among the children…this is an inspiring book – Peter Lewis * Daily Mail ‘Book of the Week’ *
A tremendously well-written and important book and a testament to the qualities Camus lent La Peste’s hero: ‘humane, optimistic, tolerant, free-thinking, ever alive to injustice and acts of inhumanity’ – Rebecca K Morris * Independent *
Caroline Moorehead’s remarkable book is in essence the story of how a community, or rather group of communities, survived the travails of war with dignity. It is also a tale that gives a larger meaning to Hemingway’s macho phrase, ‘grace under pressure’… Moorehead is wary of attempts to simplify history and ignore the complications of memory… What, as the last memories dim, was the truth? Moorehead’s question is implicit: is there such a thing? The reader is left with another question, equally difficult: ‘what would I have done?’ – Ian Bell * The Herald *

Caroline Moorehead is a bestselling and prize-winning author, and the biographer of Bertrand Russell, Freya Stark, Iris Origo, Madame de la Tour du Pin and Martha Gellhorn. Her recent books - a quartet focused on resistance to dictatorship, particularly in Italy and France - were shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Orwell Prize and the Costa Biography Award. She lives in London.

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