Type

Text

Type

Thesis

Advisor

Reeves, Robert | Hegi, Urusla | Brandeis, Magdalene | Hegi, Ursula | Lukas, Michael | Brandeis, Magdalene.

Date

2013-05-01

Keywords

Fine arts

Department

Department of Creative Writing and Literature.

Language

en_US

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/77372

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

Climbing Backward is a novel loosely inspired by real events. It tells the story of one man's struggle to reconcile a life of freedom earned at the expense of a child's life. On a foggy morning in October 1986, Thomas Hart and his teenage son were a few hundred feet from escaping over the Communist-controlled Inner-German border when the boy was shot in the back by an East German border guard. Thomas, who survived the escape and was able to cross into West Germany, quickly immigrated to the United States where he's been living ever since. The novel begins in present day with Thomas traveling to a reunited Germany to attend his stepdaughter's wedding. Within hours of arriving in the country, all his carefully constructed plans for avoiding his former life are undone. By the next morning, Thomas finds himself in a hired car taking an unplanned journey that thrusts him into his past where a brutal but important truth awaits. | 259 pages

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