To Die in Spring: A Novel

Synopsis

Distant, silent, often drunk, Walter Urban is a difficult man to have as a father. But his son—the narrator of this slim, harrowing novel—is curious about Walter’s experiences during World War II, and so makes him a present of a blank notebook in which to write down his memories. Walter dies, however, leaving nothing but the barest skeleton of a story on those pages, leading his son to fill in the gaps himself, rightly or wrongly, with what he can piece together of his father’s early life.

This, then, is the story of Walter and his dangerously outspoken friend Friedrich Caroli, seventeen-year-old trainee milkers on a dairy farm in northern Germany who are tricked into volunteering for the army during the spring of 1945: the last, and in many ways the worst, months of the war. The men are driven to the point of madness by what they experience, and when Friedrich finally deserts his post, Walter is forced to do the unthinkable.

Told in a remarkable impressionistic voice, focusing on the tiny details and moments of grotesque beauty that flower even in the most desperate situations, Ralf Rothmann’s To Die in Spring “ushers in the post–[Günter] Grass era with enormous power” (Die Zeit).

Copyright:

2017

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

224 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780374714956

Related ISBNs:

9780374278144

Publisher:

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Date of Addition:

02/27/18

Copyrighted By:

Shaun Whiteside

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Military, Literature and Fiction

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

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