The lives of three families are vividly chronicled in this novel that
details 40 years during the Cold War and its aftermath. The experiences
of each family--one British, one Hungarian, and one Russian--reflect the
brutality, danger, bravery, heartbreak, hope, and disappointment during
the days when the world was divided by the Iron Curtain. The book builds
on confidential Communist Party documents released by President Yeltsin
to Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky and the author's numerous
conversations with real people who were persecuted or imprisoned by the
Gestapo or KGB. It is an account that skillfully portrays how the
children, as they grew up, and their families in their respective
countries were affected by world events--including the Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Solidarity movement in Poland in the
early 1980s, and the end of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in
the Soviet Union in 1991.