Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem only a distant echo.
Moving backwa.
The novel follows Gustav\'s family, tracing the roots of his mother\'s anti-Semitism and its impact on her son and his beloved friend.
He begins an intense friendship with a Jewish boy his age, talented and mercurial Anton Zweibel, a budding concert pianist.
An only child, he lives alone with Emilie, the mother he adores but who treats him with bitter severity.
Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem only a distant echo