Bought in Cancer Research in Thirsk today.

I finished reading this one late last night. Got to that point where, no matter what, you have to finish the book. Even though it was desperately grim. I think this worked for me well as a fictionalised historical account of a period of German history, I am surprised I didn't know so much about. I am ashamed to say when I started this I thought they were all fictional characters - yikes. Anyway, I know better now. The jumping from different periods, with two characters at the end of their lives, Toller and Ruth, remembering that period they lived through - and don't they say your youth becomes incredibly clear towards the end - meant that in being thrown here and there I never deeply connected with any of the characters, but I get how she was doing it, to show that all this awful period really was part of people's lives, and how they move on from it all, live longer, and yet at the same time it follows and haunts them. How could such awful things not?

Chronologically this tale starts in Germany, goes to the UK then splits off to the USA and Australia. As it's not written chronologically, it dots about. It's set during that period between the end of the first world war and the start of the second, which was a time of dramatic change, coming change for a lot of countries, some far more positive than others. In Germany it was a growing horror of some seeing all that was coming their way, and trying to make the international community listen, but seemingly no one really wanted to take it on board, hoping appeasement of Hitler might work. We follow figures of activism, of various left wing groups, of journalists, of people who would dare to continue to speak out against Hitler, who find they have to flee Germany to save their lives, some then stripped of their citizenship, to become people of nowhere. And to discover no where is safe, and the state employed murderers will come for them. To say it's horrific feels like an understatement somehow, because we all know about the horrors that then came during the war, and perhaps that's why I don't know as much about this period, because the persecution doesn't seem "as bad". Yet it's a taster of things to come. The hopelessness of the situation, when you can see for these people that there isn't going to be an escape or a safe refuge, and the net is closing down on them... And beyond that, it's a sick taster of what Europe is about to be plunged in to. Was there ever a point when it all could have been avoided?

Within the Germany refugees in London, you see the rainbow of human characters. The fearful, the warriors, like Dora who will not be beaten, those who talk a good talk but are too frightened to stand up for what they believe, people who discover their own egos and feelings of self importance are more important than loyalty, than standing up for their nearest and dearest....

It's an education in many ways, and an increasingly addictive book, but my God, not a happy story. And reading it today at the end of 2023, I wonder where the world is headed now.

I am going to take three books at the community swapping bookshelf at the shopping centre that I discovered last week.