Publisher's Synopsis
The lives of three families are vividly chronicled in this novel that details 40 years during the Cold War and its aftermath. The experiences of each family—one British, one Hungarian, and one Russian—reflect the brutality, danger, bravery, heartbreak, hope, and disappointment during the days when the world was divided by the Iron Curtain. The book builds on confidential Communist Party documents released by President Yeltsin to Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky and the author's numerous conversations with real people who were persecuted or imprisoned by the Gestapo or KGB. It is an account that skillfully portrays how the children, as they grew up, and their families in their respective countries were affected by world events—including the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Solidarity movement in Poland in the early 1980s, and the end of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in the Soviet Union in 1991.
