career as a freelance journalist working for major publications, including the Toronto Star, National Post, Maclean’s, Canadian Living, Reader’s Digest, and Today’s Parent. She lives in Ontario.
Sanders applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Night Sparrow, with the following results:
On page 69 of The Night Sparrow, Elena Bruskina is being prodded by her superior, Major Bystrov, to finish translating the Berliner Frontblatt. She’d started the night before but had promptly fallen asleep. The Major tells her to get it to him before they leave.Visit Shelly Sanders's website.I need more time, she wanted to shout. I need more sleep. I need to pee. She wobbled into the bathroom and shut the door. She looked in the mirror and saw newsprint on the right side of her face. She started to laugh at herself and didn’t stop until she saw black ink smeared on her cheeks and realized she was crying.If browsers opened to Page 69, they would wonder why Elena is translating a German newspaper instead of sniping on the front line. Although The Night Sparrow is told entirely from Elena Bruskina’s point of view, the chapters shift from her progression to becoming a sniper to her secretive role as an interpreter within SMERSH (death to spies), a Soviet counterintelligence agency responsible for exterminating spies. This alternation means that no matter what page browsers opened to, they would be limited to just one of the several positions Elena fills throughout the war. On page 69, browsers miss part of the historical significance of the novel, the story of the first female snipers in history. However, they do get a glimpse of Elena’s divisive thoughts about Stalin and Hitler.
“Reprehensible, says Bystrov.
He was poring over Elena’s hastily scribbled translation of the front page of the newspaper, a statement from Hitler. They were in the jeep driving through a chalky mist.
The statement said anyone who “approves of orders that weaken our resolve” would be considered a traitor, ordering them to be “shot or hanged.”
“Unbelievable,” she agreed. Much like Stalin’s order to die rather than retreat, she thought.
Elena was confused and disappointed by Bystrov’s unquestioning obedience. How did he not see that Stalin and Hitler were cut from the same cloth? She’d only been a child when Stalin had killed thousands of his own people—generals, those who spoke out against the Party, bourgeoisie—but she remembered, with an astonishing clarity, how this had embittered her father. He’d yelled at the newspaper and the radio. He’d become paranoid, looking over his shoulder whenever he was out of their flat…
Page 69 is interesting in its own right as it reveals an underlying theme of the novel, Elena’s dangerous belief that “…Stalin and Hitler were cut from the same cloth.” On this page, browsers can infer that her opinion was shaped by her father who was “embittered” by Stalin’s purges. And browsers could surmise that she is frustrated by people like Major Bystrov who can’t or won’t see the frightening similarities between Hitler and Stalin.
--Marshal Zeringue
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