"From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. Doerr's gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work"--
Industry Reviews
"A tender exploration of this world's paradoxes; the beauty of the laws of nature and the terrible ends to which war subverts them; the frailty and the resilience of the human heart; the immutability of a moment and the healing power of time. The language is as expertly crafted as the master locksmith's models in the story, and the settings as intricately evoked. A compelling and uplifting novel."--M.L. Stedman, author of The Light Between Oceans "This jewel of a story is put together like a vintage timepiece, its many threads coming together so perfectly. Doerr's writing and imagery are stunning. It's been a while since a novel had me under its spell in this fashion. The story still lives on in my head."--Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone ""All the Light We Cannot See" is a dazzling, epic work of fiction. Anthony Doerr writes beautifully about the mythic and the intimate, about snails on beaches and armies on the move, about fate and love and history and those breathless, unbearable moments when they all come crashing together."--Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins "Doerr sees the world as a scientist, but feels it as a poet. He knows about everything"--radios, diamonds, mollusks, birds, flowers, locks, guns--but he also writes a line so beautiful, creates an image or scene so haunting, it makes you think forever differently about the big things--love, fear, cruelty, kindness, the countless facets of the human heart. Wildly suspenseful, structurally daring, rich in detail and soul, Doerr's new novel is that" novel, the one you savor, and ponder, and happily lose sleep over, then go around urging all your friends to read--now."--J.R. Moehringer, author of Sutton and The Tender Bar "This novel has the physical and emotional heft of a masterpiece...[All the Light We Cannot See"] presents two characters so interesting and sympathetic that readers will keep turning the pages hoping for an impossibly happy ending...Highly recommended for fans of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient"."--Evelyn Beck "Library Journal " "What a delight! This novel has exquisite writing and a wonderfully suspenseful story. A book you'll tell your friends about..."--Frances Itani, author of Deafening
