A deceptively simple, emotionally powerful novella about a passionate
friendship between two teenage boys that begins in Germany in
1932--under the shadow of Hitler's rise--and reverberates across the
decades. A Contemporary Classics hardcover edition.
The romantic forested landscape of southwestern Germany in 1932 is the
setting for the birth of a friendship that will haunt sixteen-year-old
Hans Schwarz for the rest of his life. Hans is Jewish, the son of a
middle-class doctor who is confident that the rise of the Nazis is only
a temporary illness afflicting his beloved country.
Hans's newest classmate, Count Konradin von Hohenfels, is a dazzling
young aristocrat whose glamorous mother keeps a portrait of Hitler on
her dresser. Hans is immediately drawn to Konradin, and thrilled when a
close bond forms between the two boys, forged by common interests that
set them apart from their classmates. But their loyalties are soon
tested in ways they could not have imagined.
Three decades later, from the vantage point of New York City, Hans once
again confronts this life-shaping episode from his childhood, through a
stunning revelation that he stumbles upon by chance. In its story of
simple friendship undone by not-so-simple times, Reunion combines the
explosive compression of a fable with the emotional depth of an epic
novel many times its length.
Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on
acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil
stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style
half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary
Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a
chronology of the author's life and times.
