For years after I tried to tell myself that what happened between us was hardly worth
remembering. Others told me the same. But now I write the truth. He was everything to me then.
Everything. Harvard 1996. Anna is about to graduate when she meets Christoph a German
student visiting campus. They only spend a week together - discussing art ideas and history -
but it is long enough for Anna to fall desperately in love. Anna begins to visit Christoph in
Germany. As she tries to understand the young elegant man who fascinates her he reveals his
country to her. Germany is still reckoning with the Holocaust and its pretty new squares and
grand facades belie its recent history and the war's destruction. Christoph condemns his
country's actions but remains vague about the part his own grandparents played. Anna's
grandfather meanwhile was an American GI who took photos of the end of the war photos that
capture its horror preserved in a scrapbook only Anna has seen. Anna wants to believe in
Christoph and the future he promises her but as their relationship becomes increasingly
unsettling she must face up to everything she has been unwilling to see and everything
Christoph has chosen to ignore. Inspired by a real-life discovery this is a story of a
consuming love haunted by European history and inherited guilt for readers of Deborah Levy
Lauren Elkin and Jenny Erpenbeck.
