Reunion: A Novella

US: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997. Paperback. Very Good. A daring novella about the loss of innocence in pre-war Germany. Reunion is the story of intense and innocent devotion between two young men growing up in "the soft, serene, bluish hills of Swabia," and the sinister (but all too mundane) forces that end both their friendship and their chil dhood. The year is 1932. Hans Schwartz is Jewish, the son of a Stuttgart doctor wh o asserts that the rise of the Nazis is "a temporary illness, something lik e measles which will pass off as soon as the economic situation improves." The Holocaust would be unthinkable for these characters, but of course it l ooms over the story: Hans's friend, the young Count Konradin von Hohenfels, has a mother who keeps a portrait of Hitler on her dresser. The two boys s hare their most private thoughts and trips to the countryside of southwest Germany, discuss poetry and the past and present of their country, and argu e the existence of a benevolent God. The eventual disintegration of this cherished relationship foreshadows the fate of Europe's Jews-- but Uhlman doesn't end his story with neat polariti es. Years later, exiled in America, Hans comes upon a revelation about von Hohenfels which provides a stunning denouement and leaves the reader recall ing Uhlman's haunting, lyrical descriptions of the vineyards, opera houses, and dark forests of Württemberg. "Hundreds of bulky tomes have now been written about the age when corpses were melted into soap to keep the master race clean; yet I sincerely believe that this slim volume will find its lasting place on the shelves."--Arthur Koestler, from the Introduction.