The Assault

It is the winter of 1945, the last dark days of the war in occupied Holland. A Nazi collaborator, infamous for his cruelty, is assassinated as he rides home on his bicycle. The Germans arrive within minutes, and in brutal retaliation burn a nearby house and massacre an innocent family. Only the youngest son, twelve-year-old Anton Steenwijk, survives.<br /><br />A novel of great emotional ans psychological intensity, The Assault traces the complex repercussions of this nightmarish event on Anton's life. Determined to forget, Anton opts for a carefully normal existence - a prudent marriage, a successful career, and colorless passivity. But the past keeps breaking through - in relentless memories and in chance encounters with the other actors in the drama - until Anton finally learns what really happened that night when his family was killed, and why.<br /><br />The Assault subtly and brilliantly explores the eternal questions of guilt and innocence, heroism and cowardice. And it introduces to the American scene a major European writer - Harry Mulisch.<br />(front flap)