Reading a phenomenal book, titled Every Man Dies Alone. It’s historical fiction about the German (internal) resistance to the Nazis during world war 2. Apparently the author survived those times – wrote the book in a frantic 25 days – and then killed himself. It has a feeling of truth to it that transcends the translation.
At this point, he doesn’t dare to think any further. He’s afraid, really afraid, of where a thought like that, taken to its conclusion, might lead. He would have to change his whole life!
I’ve also taken up a bit of a family chore – I retrieved two crates of letters from the house in Detroit. They contain years of correspondence between my grandparents – starting with when my grandfather was in boot camp – proceeding through officer candidate school – and on to his deployment in Hiroshima after the end of the war. I’m trying to read them in order, and also to scan them. I’ve got this crazy idea to make a bit of an electronic museum out of the high points. Not sure if it will go anywhere, but there it is.
The thing about these letters is that they’re so *ordinary*. My grandparents were, at one level, at least, two people who loved each other very much – whose days started with waking up and ended with going to sleep again. Along the way, they wrote to each other.
Other than that, I’m in a hotel in some town or other. Again.
