To Die in Spring: A Novel

by Ralf Rothmann Narrated by Tim Bruce

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 06/05/2017
This brilliant novel from German author Rothmann (Knife Edge) follows Walter Urban and his close friend Friedrich, two adolescent dairy farm workers in northern Germany, during the waning months of World War II. While out drinking at a local beer hall, they were coerced into enlisting in the German army by SS officers. The unnamed narrator, Walter’s son, pieces together his father’s wartime experience in the present day, after Walter’s death, by constructing the few factual details available to him into a vivid narrative that reveals the horrors of war and a traumatic event that changed Walter’s life. Spare and elegant, the novel paints a quietly harrowing picture of the lasting effects of human violence and offers brief, poignant glimpses into the natural world (especially when members of the animal kingdom wander unknowingly into the war zone). Directly confronting issues of responsibility, accountability, and legacy, this is an undeniably powerful work. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

"The haunting portrayal of conflict and carnage in the final weeks of the second world war makes this German novel a modern classic." —Rachel Seiffert, The Guardian

"Pressed into military service in the final days of WWII, a young German farmhand finds himself in a nightmare world of cruelty and desperation . . . Rothmann’s (Young Light, 2010) prose lingers plaintively on images of suffering animals and devastated buildings but avoids sentimentality about all that is damaged . . . The result is a quietly unsettling triumph." —Brendan Driscoll, Booklist (starred review)

"[A] brilliant novel from German author Rothmann . . . Spare and elegant, [it] paints a quietly harrowing picture of the lasting effects of human violence and offers brief, poignant glimpses into the natural world . . . Directly confronting issues of responsibility, accountability, and legacy, this is an undeniably powerful work." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A Bosch-like vision of hell . . . The horror of war and the deep damage it does to people . . . is not always handled as well, or as powerfully, as this." —David Mills, The Sunday Times

"Rothmann's writing is spare and vivid, nearly cinematic. It is also crucial: German accounts of WWII have been relatively rare and slow in coming, especially when it comes to descriptions of their country's own suffering. Rothmann is unflinching in his accounts of both German atrocities and misery . . . A spectacular novel . . . Searing, haunting, incandescent: Rothmann’s new novel is a vital addition to the trove of wartime fiction." —Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2017-05-15
A reluctant German soldier wades through the final days of the second world war.Walter Urban is a teenager in 1945, an apprentice on a dairy farm, when he is forced to volunteer for the SS. The war is in its final stages and Germany has begun to run out of soldiers: now, the very young and the very old must fight. Rothmann's (Fire Doesn't Burn, 2012, etc.) haunting new novel describes Walter's experiences during these final months of the war. Assigned to a supply unit, he manages to avoid the front line, serving instead as a driver. The horrors of the war seem to flicker at the corners of his vision. In a field he notices a dozen starving rabbits, "so thin that their ribs showed, and their eyelids were swollen nearly shut," while a buzzard circles above them. He drives past the bodies of German deserters, strung from the trees like ornaments. This last sight turns out to be a bad omen: Walter's best friend, Fiete, a smart, caustic boy, critical of the war ("Any idiot can destroy and kill," he says), eventually tries to run away. Rothmann's writing is spare and vivid, nearly cinematic. It is also crucial: German accounts of WWII have been relatively rare and slow in coming, especially when it comes to descriptions of their country's own suffering. Rothmann is unflinching in his accounts of both German atrocities and misery. All of this by itself would have made for a spectacular novel, but there is yet another layer to the narrative: it begins and ends a generation later, as Walter is dying. His grown son has given Walter—now a silent, heavy-drinking man—a notebook in which to write his memories. But Walter has left the notebook nearly blank, leaving his son alone to fill in the gaps. Searing, haunting, incandescent: Rothmann's new novel is a vital addition to the trove of wartime fiction.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171242213
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	08/29/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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