"A breathtaking and ineffable new novel from the author of the international best sellers Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault-a novel of love and loyalty across generations, at once sweeping and intimate. 1917. On a battlefield near the River Aisne, Johnlies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls-a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with...

Jakob Beer, a Polish war orphan who is rescued and raised by a Greek scholar, becomes the central link in three generations of men whose lives are altered by the events and effects of the Second World War.