In twelve nonfiction tales, Hanna Krall reveals how the lives of World War II survivors are shaped in surprising ways by the twists and turns of historical events. A paralytic Jewish woman starts walking after her husband is suffocated by fellow Jews afraid that his coughing would reveal their hiding place to the Germans. A young American man refuses to let go of the ghost of his half brother who died in the Warsaw ghetto. He never knew the boy, yet he learns Polish to communicate with his dybbuk. A high ranking German officer conceives of a plan to kill Hitler after witnessing a mass execution of Jews in Eastern Poland. Through Krall's adroit and journalistic style, her reader is thrown into a world where love, hatred, compassion, and indifference appear in places where we least expect them, illuminating the implacable logic of the surreal. "It is precisely the difficult path [Krall] takes toward her topic that has made some of these texts masterpieces." -- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (on Dancing at Other People's Weddings) "Heartbreaking, strange . . . and marvelously told." -- Die Zeit (on Proofs of Existence)

A case-study of the nature and limitations of pre-First World War 'feminism'.

The contents of this book will open up the full spectrum of the readers' interest in knowing who are the Langleys and what is the secret the patriarch of the family left in a package after his demise. This novel paints a captivating picture of the lifestyle and history of a well-established wealthy family in Charleston, South Carolina. The family has to face the fact that the patriarch of the family, upon his death, decided to reveal, via a handwritten document to his daughter-in-law, Jennifer, the true story of the maternal and paternal bloodline of his only son, Edwin. This document was delivered to Jennifer on the wedding day of his firstborn granddaughter, Bria. The story provides the dynamic characteristics, personalities, and secrets of each family member and culminates with the son, Edwin, wondering why his father waited until after his death to reveal these truths. Edwin is left wondering how these revelations would affect him in his business and social life. More importantly, will he be able to cope with the truth about his real bloodline?