The Orphan's Tale

The Orphan’s Tale (2017) is a historical novel by American author Pam Jenoff. A New York Times bestseller, the novel is set in a traveling circus in Germany during World War II. It follows the lives of Noa, a Dutch teenager forced to leave her family after she becomes pregnant, and Astrid, a Jewish aerialist hiding her identity, and the powerful bond they form to survive. The novel explores themes of The Strength of Found Family in the Face of Loss, The Struggle to Survive Using False Identities, and Personal Sacrifice as a Form of Courage.

Jenoff is the best-selling author of historical wartime novels like The Kommandant’s Girl. She draws on her background as a US diplomat in Poland whose work centered around Polish-Jewish relations and post-Holocaust restitution. The narrative is grounded in historical events, including the “Unknown Children”—infants transported to a concentration camp by the Nazis—and a German circus that sheltered Jews during the war. This context roots the fiction in authentic experiences of atrocity, refuge, and resistance.

This guide refers to the 2017 MIRA Books edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, child death, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, racism, religious discrimination, graphic violence, pregnancy loss, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual content.

Plot Summary

The narrative opens in present-day Paris, where a nearly 90-year-old woman visits a museum exhibit on circus history. (This woman is called Astrid, but her identity is not revealed until the end of the novel.) She has come to Paris from the US, where she lives in a nursing home but left the care staff without telling anyone. She makes her way to a specific railcar from the old Circus Neuhoff, in which she was once an aerialist. Evading notice, she opens a hidden compartment that she remembers from her youth, only to find it empty, her long-held hope of discovering something inside finally extinguished.

The story then shifts to Germany in 1944. Sixteen-year-old Noa, a Dutch girl, works as a cleaner at the Bensheim train station. She was cast out by her family after becoming pregnant by a Nazi soldier. At a German Lebensborn home, her baby boy was taken from her at birth because his dark features did not fit the Nazi Aryan ideal. One freezing night at the station, Noa discovers a boxcar filled with Jewish infants, dead or dying from the cold. In a moment of impulse, she snatches a living baby boy and flees. Although for a moment Noa loses her courage and hides the baby on a milk van, hoping he will be driven away, she reconsiders at the last moment. Pursued by guards, she flees into the woods with him, where she eventually collapses from exhaustion and exposure.

A flashback moves the story to 14 months earlier, in 1942. Ingrid Klemt, a Jewish aerialist from a renowned circus family, returns to her family’s abandoned winter quarters near Darmstadt. She had left the circus years before to marry Erich, a high-ranking Nazi officer in Berlin. Under orders from the Reich, Erich has divorced her because she is Jewish, forcing her from their home. With her own family missing, Ingrid seeks refuge with Herr Neuhoff, the owner of the rival Circus Neuhoff. He offers her a position as his lead aerialist, giving her the new name Astrid Sorrell to hide her identity.

In 1944, Peter, a clown and Astrid’s lover, finds the unconscious Noa and the baby in the woods. Noa has named the baby Theo. Herr Neuhoff agrees to let them stay, on the condition that Astrid trains Noa to become a trapeze artist in just six weeks. Astrid begins a grueling training regimen for Noa, who, despite a background in gymnastics, is terrified of the “release” maneuver. A tense rivalry develops between them, but after weeks of practice, Noa successfully performs the move, and Astrid catches her.

Immediately afterward, Astrid confronts Noa, accusing her of lying about her relationship to Theo. To teach Noa the reality of her precarious position, Astrid pushes her from the platform into the safety net. Shaken, Noa confesses that Theo is not her brother but a Jewish baby she rescued. Their tense relationship shifts when Schutzstaffel (SS) officers arrive at the circus searching for a Jew. Noa witnesses Astrid hiding in a secret crawl space and realizes Astrid is also Jewish. After the SS officers leave, Astrid shares that she is Jewish and Theo is a baby she rescued, and a powerful bond of trust forms between the two women.

The circus begins its tour in Thiers, a town in occupied France. Noa performs successfully in her first show. Shortly afterward, Noa meets Luc, the charismatic son of the local mayor, a known collaborator. Despite Astrid’s warnings to avoid locals, Noa finds herself drawn to him. During a later performance, a man is arrested in the audience. Noa creates a diversion by intentionally falling from the trapeze into the net, allowing the man to carry his young daughter out with him while the police are distracted.

In Thiers, the situation grows more perilous. Noa and Luc begin a secret relationship, communicating by leaving letters in the “belly box” storage compartment of a train sleeper car. Theo becomes gravely ill with a fever. While caring for him, Astrid reveals to Noa that she is pregnant with Peter’s child. In turn, Noa confides the remaining truth about her past relationship with a Nazi soldier and her own lost baby. Astrid makes Noa promise to stop seeing Luc. Later, Peter arranges a surprise wedding for Astrid. During the celebration, French police arrive and arrest Peter for treason, citing his anti-Nazi clown routines. In the chaos, a policeman strikes Astrid in the stomach. Herr Neuhoff, rushing to her defense, collapses and dies from a heart attack. Astrid begins bleeding, leading her to believe she has lost her baby.

With Herr Neuhoff dead, his cruel and incompetent son, Emmet, takes control of the circus. He announces that the authorities have canceled the French tour and are sending the circus back to Alsace-Lorraine, a region annexed by Germany. He also fires most of the longtime workers. This leads Metz, a Jewish clockmaker secretly sheltered by Herr Neuhoff, to hang himself in the big top. Astrid, overwhelmed by grief, is withdrawn and ill, but Emmet threatens to fire her if she does not resume performing.

Luc follows the circus to Alsace and finds Noa. He reveals that his father was complicit in Peter’s arrest and that he has decided to join the Maquis, the French Resistance. He asks Noa to escape with him. Before she can decide, he gives her a letter for Astrid that was forwarded to Thiers from Berlin. The envelope is from Astrid’s ex-husband Erich, but inside is a letter from Astrid’s brother, Jules, who has escaped to the US. It informs her that their parents died in a concentration camp but that he has secured a visa for her to join him. Separately, the envelope also contains an exit permit and funds to secure her passage, arranged by Erich. Believing she is no longer pregnant, Astrid decides to give the visa to Noa to ensure Theo’s safety. Noa refuses, revealing her plan to leave with Luc, which leads to a bitter argument.

After a final, tense performance and a bitter goodbye with Astrid, Noa leaves with Theo to meet Luc. She waits for Luc but he fails to arrive and she believes he has abandoned her. As she returns to the circus, she sees the tent on fire from an Allied air raid that began shortly after she departed. As the tent is quickly engulfed in flames and chaos erupts, Astrid becomes trapped on the trapeze platform. In a daring rescue, Noa climbs the opposite trapeze, catches Astrid in mid-air, and throws her to an intact section of the safety net. Just as Noa begins her own descent, the main tent pole collapses, trapping her beneath the burning wreckage. Mortally wounded, Noa makes Astrid promise to take Theo and use the pass to escape to the US. Noa dies in Astrid’s arms.

In the Epilogue, Astrid is back at the museum in Paris. She has come to the museum in the hope of finding an old message to Noa from Luc in the compartment, explaining why he never met Noa the night of the fire. Momentarily disappointed, she then sees a painting of Noa, the portrait that Luc had painted. The plaque reveals it was found with the body of an unidentified man killed in a resistance stronghold bombing in May 1944. Astrid realizes this was Luc, and that he died the same night as Noa: He had not abandoned her. Astrid is then joined by her two adult children who had been notified of her disappearance from the nursing home and have located her. Her son is Theo, and her daughter, Petra, is the baby who she was pregnant with during the Nazi attack where Peter was arrested. Although Theo and Petra already know the story of their own parentage, Astrid finally tells them the complete story of Noa’s lost baby, ensuring the truth is carried forward.