"Mesmerizing... Otuska has lyric gifts and narrative poise, a heat-seeking eye for detail and effortless ability to empathize with her characters."
- The New York Times
"Otsuka's novel grabs you with its first sentence and doesn't release its grip until the last page.... her writing cuts like jagged glass."
- Minneapolis Star Tribune
"A story that has more POWER
than any other I have read about this time."
-Susan Salter Reynolds,
Los Angeles Times
"Terse but eloquent....
Rendered with a sure sense of detail"
- The New York Times Book Review
A Poem About the Novel: Written by K Lowe- Oliver (1950)
WARTIME MEMORIES
Rain and fog and sleet and snow.
Sun and sand and moonlight glow -
Heart of laughter heart of pain -
Treasured picture in a frame.
Verses scribbled in a book
Bits of heather, walks we took.
Melodies and half-lost rhymes -
All the myriad scattered lines.
Scents on breezes - daffodils,
Bluebells, clover, purple hills.
Air raid sirens - screeching bombs
Throbbing engines of the Huns.
“Douse that light” - “Your gas mask please”
“What’s that light there in the trees?”
We won’t forget, we who are left
We won’t forget - must not forget.
We pray to God, if God there be,
To save man from himself.
Rain and fog and sleet and snow.
Sun and sand and moonlight glow -
Heart of laughter heart of pain -
Treasured picture in a frame.
Verses scribbled in a book
Bits of heather, walks we took.
Melodies and half-lost rhymes -
All the myriad scattered lines.
Scents on breezes - daffodils,
Bluebells, clover, purple hills.
Air raid sirens - screeching bombs
Throbbing engines of the Huns.
“Douse that light” - “Your gas mask please”
“What’s that light there in the trees?”
We won’t forget, we who are left
We won’t forget - must not forget.
We pray to God, if God there be,
To save man from himself.