The Barman of the Ritz by Phillipe Collin (transl. Frank Wynne): ‘In his poition, what would you have done?’

Based on real life figures, Philippe Collin’s The Barman of the Ritz isn’t an obvious choice for me, but I’ve enjoyed several novels translated by Frank Wynne so decided to give it a try. Collin reimagines bartender Frank Meier’s four years at the Parisian hotel during the Occupation, from 1940 to Liberation in August of ’44.

France has dissolved like a lump of sugar in a glass of absinthe.

The child of Polish Jews, Frank set up the Petit Bar in 1921, learning his trade in New York to which he’d made his way aged just fourteen. He’s a veteran of the Great War, fighting for the French under General Pètain, despite his Austrian citizenship, revealing his Jewish heritage to no one. By the time the Nazis arrive, Frank is renowned, even writing a book at the suggestion of F Scott Fitzgerald who he knew well enough to call a friend. Marie-Louise Ritz takes full advantage of her Swiss citizenship, keeping the hotel open as an island of neutrality while indulging the likes of Göring and his henchmen. Frank swallows his scruples, charming the German officers who frequent his bar while keeping an eye on his young Jewish apprentice for who he’s arranged false papers. Georges, his assistant and fellow veteran, quickly adjusts to this new life, placing his faith in Pètain’s Vichy administration. Over the years of Occupation, the luxurious world of the Ritz is an increasingly jarring contrast with the starvation and misery outside its doors. Frank becomes involved in a scheme to help wealthy Jewish families escape, his anxiety mounting that his own identity will be revealed and that the recklessness of the woman he adores will be the death of her. By the time the Allies arrive, he no longer recognises himself as he readies the bar to receive a new set of officers.

One day, he finds himself doing favours for Nazis, the next, he is helping Jewish families escape.

That subtitle is taken from Collin’s author’s note. It’s one I’ve asked myself when thinking about the Occupation and collaboration, perhaps understandably not much written about until comparatively recently. It’s a morally complex time which Collin explores well through Frank and his circumstances, from the naked exploitation by the ‘Widow’, as he dubs Marie-Louise, and the staff’s greed for tips, to Frank’s arrangement of false papers, at first pragmatic then to ease his conscience and out of concern while also making money. Collin spent seven years researching the background for Frank’s story which is backed up with an appendix, a gallery of the main protagonists and their fates after Liberation. He leaves Frank on the 9th August 1944, with Hemmingway’s legendary entrance to the bar. The real Frank died three years later in slightly murky circumstances. It’s a gripping story, well told, its suspense maintained even though we know the ending. Collin’s description of a Paris suffering the depredations of Occupation, and worse, was particularly resonant for me given my visit to the city earlier this year which took me just metres away from the famous hotel.

Doubleday: London 9781529956399 368 pages Hardback (NetGalley)