Book Review | ‘The Wind Knows My Name’ by Isabel Allende

If you’re drawn to novels with a broad sweep of time and place, The Wind Knows My Name, the latest from Isabel Allende, deserves a place on your reading list. Fans of Allende’s work, which includes more than a dozen works of fiction, including her best known book, The House of the Spirits, will recognize the narrative drive and her knack for merging the elements of a story.

The novel opens in Vienna, Austria in 1938. For the venerable old city’s Jewish inhabitants, “the stench of fear, like rust and rotting garbage” is heavy in the winter air. Germany had annexed the country in the spring and the Nazis moved quickly to assert control and dominance. They banned opposition and decreed a range of antisemitic policies, including the confiscation of property. Jews with the means and ability to leave were doing so. England. The United States. South America. Any destination where visas could be obtained would do.  

The opening section is perhaps the most powerful in the entire novel as it shows in gripping detail how the noose tightened, escape routes narrowed, and options became more dire. Samuel Adler was just a child, a violin prodigy, when his father was nearly beaten to death and deported to the camps. Samuel’s mother tries to obtain a visa to emigrate to Chile. There’s almost nothing Rachel Adler won’t sacrifice to protect her child, including physical debasement at the hands of a corrupt consular official, an effort that ultimately fails. Samuel will never know about his mother’s sacrifice. The five-year-old is put aboard a kindertransport train bound for England, alone, with only his violin case. The last time he sees his mother is on the platform. It’s an image Samuel will carry into his old age.