From Robert Seethaler, the International Booker Prize finalist for A
Whole Life and bestselling author of The Tobacconist, comes a tale of
life and death and human connection, told through the voices of those
who have passed on.
The Field is the oldest part of the cemetery in Paulstadt, where some of
the small town's most outspoken residents can be found. From their
graves, they tell stories. Some recall just a moment -- perhaps the one
in which they left this world, perhaps the one they now realize changed
the course of their life forever. Some remember all the people they've
been with, or the only person they ever loved. This chorus of voices --
young, old, rich, poor -- builds a picture of a community, seen from
below ground. The streets of the sleepy provincial town are given shape
and meaning by those who lived, loved, worked, mourned, and died there.
The Field is a constellation of human lives -- each one different yet
connected to countless others -- that shows how existence, for all its
fleetingness, still has profound meaning.