A narrator with unparalleled observational skills and boundless sensitivity and imagination draws from a rich well of experience. Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Leni Pfeiffer, née Gruyten, born in 1922, meets and falls in love with the Soviet prisoner of war Boris during the war, secures him a German passport, and learns that he dies in an American camp. By now, she is forty-eight, and their son is in prison for trying to right a wrong done to his mother in his own way. An author ironically introduced as "Verf." reconstructs the life of this woman from the testimonies left behind, conversations, and memories. With this now classic novel, Heinrich Böll has created a richly detailed panorama of German pre- and post-war history.