Following Little Miss C's arrival I've not had much time for reading, but when my mum recently lent m a copy of West of the Wall
In this Marcia Preston book we follow the fortunes of Trudy who lives in what was then East Berlin with her young son and mother in law. Her husband Rolf is missing, believed to have crossed the wall into West Berlin. The authorities suspect that this is the case and hence Trudy is placed in the difficult position if either having to follow him, or stay and face the certain prospect of interrogation and prison. Both would separate her from her young son Stefan, but she decides to risk crossing the wall in the hope that one day she can be reunited with her son in West Berlin. What happens next is the at times heartbreaking story of a woman separated from the child she loves and prepared to go to extreme lengths to be reunited with him.
Having travelled to Berlin a couple of times and visited the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie Museum I have read many stories about the lengths Berliners were prepared to go to cross the wall and hence the subject of this book fascinated me. Being a new mum the emotional questions about what a mother is prepared to do for their children was also intriguing. I certainly found the bulk of the book very well written and it really drew me in to Trudy's world. There was one part where she suddenly travels to America which I found harder to believe and did seem like it was an unnecessary long diversion from what I considered to be the main story line. Overall though I thought it a fascinating read, especially since it was set in a period in (recent) history which I have learnt a large amount about in the past through school history lessons and visiting Berlin. Definitely worth coming out of my temporary reading "retirement" for.
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