A gripping work of narrative nonfiction recounting the history of the
Dresden Bombing, one of the most devastating attacks of World War II.
On February 13th, 1945 at 10:03 PM, British bombers began one of the
most devastating attacks of WWII: the bombing of Dresden. The first
contingent killed people and destroyed buildings, roads, and other
structures. The second rained down fire, turning the streets into a
blast furnace, the shelters into ovens, and whipping up a molten
hurricane in which the citizens of Dresden were burned, baked, or
suffocated to death.
Early the next day, American bombers finished off what was left.
Sinclair McKay's The Fire and the Darkness is a pulse-pounding work of
history that looks at the life of the city in the days before the
attack, tracks each moment of the bombing, and considers the long period
of reconstruction and recovery. The Fire and the Darkness is powered
by McKay's reconstruction of this unthinkable terror from the points of
view of the ordinary civilians: Margot Hille, an apprentice brewery
worker; Gisela Reichelt, a ten-year-old schoolgirl; boys conscripted
into the Hitler Youth; choristers of the Kreuzkirche choir; artists,
shop assistants, and classical musicians, as well as the Nazi officials
stationed there.
What happened that night in Dresden was calculated annihilation in a war
that was almost over. Sinclair McKay's brilliant work takes a complex,
human, view of this terrible night and its aftermath in a gripping book
that will be remembered long after the last page is turned.
