Sublime

In her novel Stones from the River, set in Nazi Germany, Ursula Hegi reveals the suffering of the “other” in a startling way.

Jenny had saved the precious grains of sand in an empty Colman’s mustard jar and when she left home and married Simon she had taken the jar with her. Now and then, when she feels herself disappearing into his or Charlotte’s life, a minor character in their stories, she holds the jar to the window and watches the light glinting off the tiny crystals

He was let loose back into the world. He was trusted to go to work. It was asked of him to be normal. To be a father. To be a husband. But he couldn’t get better. He just couldn’t. He began to see all of time as happening simultaneously, or close to it. He began to see that he could be at work, or at Nathan’s baseball game, but he could also be loc