Acquainted with the Night

Heinrich Boll's novel of postwar Cologne depicts a ruined city and its half-ruined people struggling to emerge from the rubble and dust. There was a Blitz here, too, as non-Germans may forget. Fred and Kate, whose marriage has been deformed by the destruction of the city, narrate alternating chapters. They are both ordinary and exemplary, as good literature requires. With Boll, too, there is a Catholic element that leavens the text.