The Undertaking
A Novel
-
-
4.0 • 16 Ratings
-
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
A "deeply impressive . . . devastating but quite stunning" novel about doomed love and ambition in Nazi Germany (Minneapolis Star-Tribune).
Set during World War II amid the trenches of the eastern front and the turmoil of Berlin under the Third Reich, The Undertaking intertwines the lives of two German strangers entering into a proxy marriage of convenience, self-interest, and of ideology.
Peter Faber is a soldier desperate to escape the madness of war if only by a three-week honeymoon leave. His new wife is Katharine Spinell, a resourceful young woman from Berlin who anticipates the likelihood of a widow's pension should Peter die in battle. When they finally meet there is an attraction as unexpected as it is intense. But as Peter returns to Stalingrad, and as Katherine ruthlessly works her way into Nazi high society, the tides of war change. So do Peter and Katharine's fates and fortunes, in this "bold, honest novel about Nazi greed and moral blankness . . . and the small people who are inseparably part of a great ravagement" (The Guardian).
Finalist for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, The Undertaking is "one of the most riveting accounts of love in time of war that this reviewer has ever read" (Library Journal (starred review)—"a violent, elegant, unsentimental journey through hell and halfway back" (Chris Cleave, New York Times–bestselling author of Everyone Brave is Forgiven).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This excellent debut novel opens on the "stinking hellhole" of the front lines early in WWII, where teacher-turned-Nazi soldier Peter Faber marries a photograph of Katharina. Meanwhile, in Berlin, Katharina marries a picture of Peter. Though the two have never met, their pact "ensured honeymoon leave for him and a widow's pension for her in the event of his death." Much to their mutual surprise, the 10 days they are granted to consummate their marriage become intensely passionate, providing both characters with a singular reason to live. Alternating chapters follow Peter on the battlefield and Katharina's harrowing life in Berlin. Occasional letters between the two reveal private hopes, memory, and torment that add to the already white-knuckle pace of the book. An intimate portrayal of Peter and his fellow soldiers facing defeat in Russia illustrated primarily through dialogue shows men at once monstrous and sympathetic, barbaric yet vulnerable. By simultaneously exposing the difficulties Katharina faces at home, Magee provides a heartfelt rendering of regular Germans who have been both complicit in and abused by the Third Reich's power.
