The Sweetness of Forgetting

The Sweetness of Forgetting is the third novel by Kristin Harmel, and it was published by Gallery Books in 2012. It follows the journey toward love and discovery of Hope who, after her divorce, is struggling with raising her middle-school daughter, slowly losing her beloved grandmother to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and running the family bakery in Cape Cod. When Hope learns that her grandmother was Jewish and nearly everyone she loved vanished in the Holocaust, Hope sets out to locate her surviving great-uncle and find out what happened to the love of her grandmother’s life. Along the way, Hope uncovers secrets that have been hidden for decades and lessons of love that have survived a lifetime. Alternating between Hope’s and her grandmother Rose’s points of view, the book’s themes of survival, legacy, family bonds, religious unity, and romantic love made it an international bestseller. Harmel has gone on to publish several other works of historical women’s fiction set around World War II.

This guide references the Gallery Books paperback published in 2012.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss antisemitism and the Holocaust.

Plot Summary

Hope is making the day’s pastries at North Star Bakery, the bakery in Cape Cod that her grandmother, Rose, whom she calls Mamie, established 60 years ago. Hope moved back to Cape Cod to care for her mother, who died of breast cancer, and now Mamie’s Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is progressing. Hope’s relationship with her middle-school daughter, Annie, is tense, and Hope is arguing with her ex, Rob, over suitable boundaries. Hope wanted to be a lawyer before she married Rob and had a surprise pregnancy, and she never wanted to end up back in Cape Cod. However, when she learns from a friend that the bank might foreclose on the bakery, Hope doesn’t want to lose the business.

Hope never felt that her mother, Josephine, was emotionally available, and she depended on her grandmother and her grandfather, Ted, for affection. All Hope knows of her grandmother’s life is that she was born in France and met Ted, a pilot, in Spain during WWII. As Mamie’s memory fades, Hope worries that she will lose the last person who really loves her. Rose, on the other hand, finds that as her disease progresses, her memories are becoming stronger, as is her need for answers.

On a rare lucid day, Rose asks Hope and Annie to take her to the beach so that she can watch the stars come out. Hope brings along Star Pies, the bakery’s specialty and Mamie’s favorite. Rose gives Hope a list of names—the names of her parents and siblings—and asks Hope to travel to Paris to discover what happened to them.

Hope is convinced that she can’t travel to Paris; she’s reluctant to ask anyone for help with the bakery, not even her friend and handyman, a handsome younger man named Gavin. Hope starts making calls and is astonished to learn that Mamie’s family was not Catholic but Jewish. Everyone on Mamie’s list died in Auschwitz during the Holocaust except for her younger brother, Alain, who is unaccounted for. Gavin, whose grandmother survived the Holocaust, helps in Hope’s search, but Hope realizes that she will have to go to Paris for real answers. She visits the Holocaust museum and, on her way to interview another survivor, remembers a fairy tale her grandmother told her about a princess waiting for her prince. She finds a bakery in the Jewish Quarter and realizes that many of Mamie’s pastries are traditional Jewish recipes, but not all. Hope then meets Alain, who is now widowed. Alain escaped the infamous Vel d’Hiver roundup which trapped the rest of his family and is moved to learn that Rose survived. He asks Hope if she knows of Jacob Levy, the love of Rose’s life.

With the help of Alain’s friends, Hope visits the Grand Mosque in Paris and learns that a Muslim family sheltered Rose during the war and helped her escape to Spain. The Hassams ran a bakery, and they and Rose exchanged recipes that have become a part of one another’s family traditions. Hope also learns that Mamie was pregnant when she left, and she wonders what happened to the baby.

Hope and Alain fly back to Cape Cod, where Mamie has had a stroke and is in a coma. Rose, feeling as though she is underwater, lives surrounded by memories: of the night she left home after failing to convince her father to leave Paris and hide their family; of the devastation she felt when her husband Ted, at her request, reported that everyone she loved, including Jacob, had died. Rose felt that her heart died when she learned that news; now she fears that her trauma scarred her daughter and hurt Hope.

Annie, entranced by Mamie’s story, insists on finding Jacob Levy. Annie is having a hard time dealing with her father’s new girlfriend, and when Hope confronts her ex and tells him to stand up for Annie, Annie begins to thaw toward her. Hope begins searching for Jacob Levy and gets a lead when she hears from the granddaughter of an Albanian Muslim woman, now living in the US, whose family helped to hide a Jewish family during the war. Hope asks Gavin to travel to New York City with her, though she is certain that they are not suited for a romantic relationship. When she recalls the rest of the fairy tale Rose told her, Hope locates Jacob Levy and realizes immediately that he is Josephine’s father and her grandfather. Jacob wants to see Rose at once.

Rose emerges from her coma at the sound of Jacob’s voice, and she is moved to find Alain also at her side. Rose passes away that night, and Jacob passes shortly thereafter. When Alain returns to Paris and Hope turns down Gavin’s offer of a date, she finds herself alone. However, she won’t lose the bakery; both Jacob and Mamie left Hope enough money to buy the family business and preserve the family legacy. A last letter from Rose instructs Hope not to continue her tradition of brokenheartedness. Inspired by looking at the stars, Hope calls Gavin and at last risks opening her heart to love.