The Valley of Unknowing (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780393239331)

In the twilight years of Communist East Germany, Bruno Krug, author of a single world-famous novel written twenty years earlier, falls for Theresa Aden, a music student from the West. But Theresa has also caught the eye of a cocky young scriptwriter who delights in satirizing Krug's work.

Asked to appraise a mysterious manuscript, Bruno is disturbed to find that the author is none other than his rival. Disconcertingly, the book is good--very good. But there is hope for the older man: the unwelcome masterpiece is dangerously political. Krug decides that if his affair with Theresa is to prove more than a fling, he must employ a small deception. But in the Workers' and Peasants' State, knowing the deceiver from the deceived, the betrayer from the betrayed, isn't just difficult: it is a matter of life and death. Now the celebrated author and secret Stasi informer is ready to confess...

The Valley of Unknowing is both a moving and entertaining love story and a seductive thriller, one that pits the past against the future, commerce against creativity, and art against life.

Author: Philip Sington
ISBN-10: 0393239330
ISBN-13: 9780393239331
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English
Published: 12/03/2012
Pages: 304
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.28lbs
Size: 9.42h x 6.46w x 0.95d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 10/01/2012 pg. 74
Kirkus Reviews 10/15/2012 pg. 2320
Booklist 11/01/2012 pg. 26