The Bread of Those Early Years

Torn by insecurity and cynicism, washing-machine repairman Walter Fendrich is obsessed with hunger, "the wolf living inside my stomach." The war and wartime shortages haunt him as an insatiable craving for bread, a bottomless desperation for security and gratification of basic needs. One day he finds himself and his world transformed when he meets a woman and discovers that love dispels his cravings as bread never could.

"Much of its stunning impact derives from Boll's hard-earned awareness that while man doesn't live by bread alone, he doesn't live without bread. . . . The Bread of Those Early Years is a poignant tribute to his skill and vision." --New York Times Book Review

"Bread is as wrenching as the best of his work." --American Bookseller