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I don’t care for books about war. I’m not much of a history reader. However, I am a huge fan of Chris Bohjalian so decided to give it a try. After the first few paragraphs, I could not turn the pages fast enough. It follows Anne Emmerich, an eighteen year-old girl from a wealthy Prussian family, her mother, and her twelve year-old brother, as they journey westward at the end of WWII. They are joined by a POW from Scotland who had been working at their estate and a Jewish man who escaped from a train bound for Auschwitz. There is also a parallel story line that depicts the journey of a group of Jewish women who are on a gruesome death march to a concentration camp. One of the strangely endearing things about all of these characters is that they really have no idea what has happened during the war that has raged all around them over the course of the past few years.
The thing that I loved the most about this book was that it created a sense of the time and the place so vividly that I felt that the desolate landscape of Eastern Germany was right outside my window. Some of the violence was graphic and difficult to read, but the depth was in the details. I found myself not breathing through my nose as the author described what would have smelled so very foul and reaching for an extra blanket as he wrote about the bitter aching cold. I cried through the sweet romance and I cried through the losses that the characters suffered. My heart broke when they risked death to be kind to one another. Finally I cried when the book ended just because it had ended.
This book deepened and expanded my knowledge of this part of history in a way that I did not expect. So, if you like books about war or history (or if you don’t), if you like books about love and desperation and great sacrifice, if you like novels that are fast-faced and well-written, read this latest work by Chris Bohjalian. It’ll stay with you long after you put it back on the shelf.
