Leaves Hung In The Stillness

Germans Grew Reluctant To Stay In Communal Ski Lodges, Fearing They Might Talk In Their Sleep. They Postponed Surgeries Because Of The Lip-loosening Effects Of Anesthetic. Dreams Reflected The Ambient Anxiety. One German Dreamed That An Sa Man Came To His Home And Opened The Door To His Oven, Which Then Repeated Every Negative Remark The Household Had Made Against The Government.

Digression Is My Passion. I Love Telling The Main Stories, But In Some Ways, What I Love Most Is Using Those Narratives As A Way Of Stringing Together The Interesting Stories That People Have Kind Of Forgotten, And That Are Kind Of Surprising. The Problem Is, How Do You Pare Stories Away So That The Book Doesn't Become A Distracting Jumble Of Material, And Readers Lose Focus? In My Experience, There's Really Only One Way To Do That. I Pack It All In With The Rough Draft, Then Count On Myself And My Trusted Readers To Tell Me What's Good And What's Not Good.

There's Something So Relentless And Foul About Hitler And His People, And The Way Things Progressed From Year To Year. It Just Got To Me In The Strangest Way.

It Was So Easy To Disappear, So Easy To Deny Knowledge, So Very Easy In The Smoke And Din To Mask That Something Dark Had Taken Root. This Was Chicago, On The Eve Of The Greatest Fair In History.

Beneath The Stars The Lake Lay Dark And Sombre," Stead Wrote, "but On Its Shores Gleamed And Glowed In Golden Radiance The Ivory City, Beautiful As A Poet's Dream, Silent As A City Of The Dead.