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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, East Prussia and our BookBrowse Review of Skeletons at the Feast.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
Skeletons at the Feast: Reading Guide & Q&A
Reading Guide
In the chaotic months before the final collapse of the Third Reich, the Germans living in the eastern part of Hitlers empire fled their homes to escape the onslaught of the Soviet Army. If these refugees didnt know the specifics of the atrocities their people had committed on Russian soil and, in fact, were still committing in concentration camps across Poland and Germanythey nonetheless understood that the Russians were going to be merciless.
It is this world that Chris Bohjalian brings vividly and powerfully to life in Skeletons at the Feast. A Prussian aristocrat struggles west with her beautiful daughter, her young son, and a Scottish prisoner of war. Meanwhile, a female Jewish prisoner struggles to survive first the horrors of a concentration camp and then a forced march west in the ice and snow of a German winter. And a Jewish man who has leapt from a train bound for a death camp learns to do whatever he must to survive.
This readers guide is intended as a starting point for your discussion of the novel.
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Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Three Rivers. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
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