It is 1944 and the Red Army soldiers are the first to arrive. After three years of hiding in a hayloft, a family are helped down and given bread. One of the soldiers picks up the four-year-old girl and carries her outside. She looks around in wonder as she feels, for the first time in her conscious life, the fresh air of summer on her cheeks. So begins a young girl's new life amid the ruins of World War II in Eastern Europe where the Red Army has just liberated the Polish town of Dobryd. While adults mourn what was lost forever, the narrator explores a world that had been forbidden to her, discovering the pleasures of the senses and the company of other children. Though resolutely thriving in the present and thrilled about what's ahead, she pieces together the past that the adults are determined to bury. In this powerful novel about momentous events, Montreal writer Ann Charney tells an illuminating story of ordinary people committing appalling crimes. Written with fierce candour and insight, it is an eloquent story that never stoops to victimization or self-pity.
