robert hirzer

The discovery of a cache of old letters belonging to his father prompts a grieving physician to revisit the past. His journey of discovery leads him to an entirely new view of his parents’ lives and also sets off a re-examination of his own. The story follows an impoverished family of five children growing up in post-World-War-I Austria and continues through the upheaval of World War II and beyond. Spanning three generations and two continents, this compelling saga interweaves historical romance, adventure yarn, memoir and mystery. Whether on the brutal battlefields of Russia, in a quaint Irish fishing village or by a small collection of German graves in southern Ontario, a common theme emerges: history, the narrator learns, is never what it seems, and the search for a better future is often hindered by the haunting grip of the past.