Home If you want to write The Good American Diary of a Naive The Tenant Bo on the Fencepost Short Stories Various Info Memories of VMI
A Brief History of the Novel's Time in Pictures
Ruth permitted herself a quick look around the room. On the wall behind the officer hung a large map of the divided Germany, the various Allied sectors clearly outlined. She studied the map for a moment.... (excerpted from The Good American)
ca. 1948 - a bombed city
(Photograph 2000)
The morning I drove out to the Shenandoah Valley was pleasant enough. A calm haze hovered of the lush, green meadows and fields, and the deep forests and the mountains I soon drove toward were misty like a dreamscape.... (excerpted from The Good American)
Truemmerfrauen ca. 1948
(A loose translation for these women is, possibly, rubble-women, because that's what they did--they cleaned up the rubble. But the word is almost symbolic, because, of course, these women were emotionally and physically just as wrecked as these buildings.)
The next day, a Saturday, Ruth and Hannah, together with a group of other women, worked side by side at the site of a bombed building, clearing away the rubble. The women, all poorly dressed and covered with dust, worked quickly, filling the rubble into buckets and passing them down a line to a waiting truck. In spite of the heat and work, they talked and laughed. The backbreaking work would be unbearable otherwise. Nearby, a group of children, laughing and shouting, played hopscotch on what was left of a sidewalk. Little Eva, a thick piece of chalk in her small hand was busy decorating the outside of a hopscotch design with flowers. The chalk looked surprisingly like the piece of an ornate plaster cornice that had once decorated a room.... (excerpted from The Good American)
A place to live after the war
"Most everything in Germany was bombed, of course, and people lived wherever they could find a hole with a bit of roof over it. ... The wonderful thing about kids is that they are quite happy if they don't know any better. And I didn't know any better. I thought that's the way people all over the world lived. Of course! This was my world. I didn't know any other. I mean, if you're born into a bombed world, that's your world. And if you're born into a world with little food and few clothes and shoes, you take that for granted. Going to the relief center was a way of life. I didn't know that there were stores where you could buy clothes. I mean, there weren't any. They were bombed. I won't ever forget the day when lollipops appeared in the newly reopened grocery store across the street...." (excerpted from The Good American)
(ca. 1947 - scrambling for coal that has fallen off a train)
"But unless you've been in a place where there isn't even soap to wash with," Penelope said, "you can't appreciate what these women went through, having to feed and clothe their children, and sometimes even elderly parents, and keeping disease away because there was little water and nothing to wash with...." (excerpted from The Good American)
ca. 1948 - Coming back from the country, or going there, to barter valuables for food.
Arno and Ruth pressed close to the door, their only protection from being swept away or trampled to death by the frenzied forward surge of the people. The train was crowded to bursting. Those trying to get off struggled desperately to achieve that feat as those trying to board desperately fought their way on. But the train was already moving again. The angry roar of the crowd swelled to a single mad crescendo as the train moved faster and faster out of sight.... (excerpted from The Good American)
Children's shoes
"Martha," Ruth said, "there are thousands of children who have no parents after this war. They have no home. There are no orphanages, and what there was has been bombed. They dig in the garbage for food. They go barefoot because there are no shoes." Agitated, Ruth got up. "If you want a child, there are thousands that need you." (excerpted from The Good American)
Stormy skies in the Shenandoah Valley 2001
"Good God!" It was all I could say. An uneasy calm rose from the candles into the silence of the room. Outside the window, the gray sky hung low, pregnant with rain as the wind tore at the roses climbing up the patio columns.... (excerpted from The Good American)
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