When Nazi forces occupy the beautiful coastal city of Yalta, Crimea, everything changes. Eighteen-year-old Filip has few options; he is a prime candidate for forced labor in Germany. His hurried marriage to his childhood friend Galina might grant him reprieve, but the rules keep shifting. Galina’s parents, branded as traitors for innocently doing business with the enemy, decide to volunteer in hopes of better placement. The work turns out to be horrific, but at least the family stays together. By winter 1945, Allied air raids destroy strategic sites; Dresden, a city of no military consequence, seems safe. The world knows Dresden’s fate. Roads is the story of one family lucky enough to escape with their lives as the city burns behind them. But as the war ends, they are separated and their trials continue. Looking for safety in an alien land, they move toward one another with the help of refugee networks and pure chance. Along the way, they find new ways to live in a changed world—new meanings for fidelity, grief, and love.

Roads: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Cramer, Marina Antropow

United States

Academy Chicago Publishers

Marfa's River

Women's Fiction

Loyola College/Apprentice House

Three generations of women suffer the consequences of a single violent act. Mimi has no memory of the beating she endured at her mother Eva's hand. Both struggle to understand and perhaps overcome the detachment that defines their adult relationship. Eva's gentle mother, Anna, who witnessed (and stopped) the event, becomes a thorn in Eva's conscience, a constant unwitting reminder of her shame and self-loathing. Adam, Mimi's small son, occupies the center of this troubled family. He knows nothing of the cause, but is a precocious observer who, unawares, uses the best of his open nature and the purity of his child's love to move the women toward healing.

Anna Eva Mimi Adam

Runamok Books

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Books by Cramer, Marina Antropow