A panoramic novel of European history by an internationally bestselling writer. The whole
truth as the name implies is the collective knowledge of all those involved. Which is why you
can never piece it together again properly afterwards. Because a few of those who possessed a
part of it are always already dead. Or lying or their memories are bad. It's 1989 and in a
small town on the Austria-Hungary border nobody talks about the war the older residents
pretend not to remember and the younger ones are too busy making plans to leave. The walls are
thin the curtains twitch there is a face at every window and everyone knows what they are
not supposed to say. But as thousands of East German refugees mass at the border it seems
that the past is knocking on Darkenbloom's door. Still though nobody talks about the war.
Until a mysterious visitor shows up asking questions. Until townspeople start receiving
threatening letters and even disappearing. Until a body is found. Darkenbloom is a sweeping
novel of exiled counts Nazis-turned-Soviet-enforcers secret marriages mislabelled graves
remembrance guilt and the devastating power of silence by one of Austria's most significant
contemporary writers.
