Blue Blossom

The novel Blue Blossom embraces the vast sweep of the Second World War across Europe and within one man’s soul. Johann Frühauf grows up in Spain during the 1930s. As a young man, he comes to love literature and intense romantic affairs, but war turns him into a reluctant German army officer, and by the end of the fighting he suffers a breakdown.

After the war, he escapes to the tranquil prosperity of the Western United States. Late in life, he seeks to mend his own spirit by writing a memoir and to give a gift to the woman he loves most: his old friend Frieda, the actress whose dream is to play Hamlet.