The Vanishing Sky

By L. Annette Binder

Book Overview

For readers of Warlight and The Invisible Bridge, an intimate, harrowing story about a family of German citizens during World War II.

Included in the New York Times Book Review's Summer Reading Guide for Historical Fiction

"There was no shelter without her sons."

In 1945, as the war in Germany nears its violent end, the Huber family is not yet free of its dangers or its insidious demands. Etta, a mother from a small, rural town, has two sons serving their home country: her elder, Max, on the Eastern front, and her younger, Georg, at a school for Hitler Youth. When Max returns from the front, Etta quickly realizes that something is not right-he is thin, almost ghostly, and behaving very strangely. Etta strives to protect him from the Nazi rule, even as her husband, Josef, becomes more nationalistic and impervious to Max's condition. Meanwhile, miles away, her younger son Georg has taken his fate into his own hands, deserting his young class of battle-bound soldiers to set off on a long and perilous journey home.

The Vanishing Sky is a World War II novel as seen through a German lens, a story of the irreparable damage of war on the home front, and one family's participation-involuntary, unseen, or direct-in a dangerous regime. Drawing inspiration from her own father's time in the Hitler Youth, L. Annette Binder has crafted a spellbinding novel about the choices we make for country and for family.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1635574676
• ISBN13: 9781635574678
• Release Date: July 2020
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Read 50 Pages & Was So Bored I Stopped Reading

The inside cover compares this book to "The Invisible Bridge". I read "The Invisible Bridge" and loved it. I think the book was poorly written. It was hard to follow and I was bored with it. i read over 45 books a year and this is the only book I started and didn't finish.