Skeletons at the Feast

I should have known that ith a title like Skeletons at the Feast that this book was not going to be a pleasant stroll down a country lane...I just did not anticipate how disturbing this book by Chris Bojhalian would be. It is set right as World War II is ending and it is about East Germans' exodus to West Germany to escape the Russian invasion. The layout of the book is parallel story lines of 3 different groups of people (a German family harbouring a Scottish POW, a female labor camp, and a Jew who has been impersonating German soldiers for 2 years) throughout the book there are more character's points of view included, but these are the threee main story lines. The disturbing parts of the book are the descriptions of what the Russians did to their German captors (rape, torture, murder) and what the Germans did to the Jews (much the same). It is interesting to see the German characters coming to realize the atrocities being done to the Jews (in their naivete they believed the propaganda that simply said the Jews were being "relocated"). The book is based on quite a few journals that were kept during this time and on family accounts. If the book didn't have such disturbing images I would recommend it just to see the many perspectives of the end of the war and to see how ignorant many of the German people really were to what was going on in their country.

After I read Sarah's Key I vowed that I wouldn't read another WWII book for a while, but I was tricked by this one because someone at my mom's school suggested this and didn't say what it was about. Also I've read another book by Chris Bohjalian (Midwives...very good, you should go read it NOW) so I trusted that I would enjoy it. Instead, the two days that it took me to read it I was filled with an ill feeling and always anticipation of what was going to happen next to all of the characters (which, I suppose, is the mark of a good author). The book does have a happy ending (which is the only reason I read the whole thing...I figured there HAD to be a happy ending), but I won't soon be able to erase some of the images from my head.

The next book I am reading is The Color of Water by James McBride. It is about a biracial boy being raised by a white mother. I'm sure parts of this book will be harrowing as well, but I am ready to leave the 1940's behind. I plan to read this book along with Barack Obama's Dreams of my Father which is much the same premise. I would like to know how both of these mens' experiences compare and contrast to eachother.