Ew. Terrible cover. Thank goodness the copy I got from the library had a different one or I never would have picked it up! Bohjalian wrote Midwives which I found really readable and compelling. This is too. Set in Germany during the final year of World War 2, Skeletons at the Feast is the story of a group of people trying to survive physically (cold, hunger, the Russian army’s advances) and emotionally, coming to grips with guilt and loss. Anna is a young German woman of “farming aristocracy” who has to flee the relative provision of her family’s north German farm as the Russians advance. She goes with her mother and little brother, having lost her father and 2 brothers to the army already. They take with them Callum, the Scottish POW who was a conscripted farm-hand for them and has since become Anna’s lover. They are joined by Uri Singer, a German Jew who jumped off a train bound for Auschwitz and has spent the last year killing German soldiers and using their clothes and papers for survival.
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