“In Bavaria the snow is always very deep. Once the first flakes dall it quickly buries everything that rests on the country earth: hedgehog nests, lost underpants, drawings of a crucified Jesus clumsily wrought in coloured pencil, worn bars of Fels-Naptha laundry soap good for removing most stains. I have seen all of these things vanish beneath that snow that rots everything, and if ever there was anything colder or more beautiful than a German winter I have yet to experience it.”

–extract from opening chapter–