Book Reviews

Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi -- 4 stars

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Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0042JSN8Q/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3042229324

Asin in Amazon: B0042JSN8
531 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 25, 2011)
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The author of this book is Ursula Hegi, a German-American writer who was born as Ursula Koch in 1946 in Düsseldorf, Germany and emigrated to USA in 1965. She is an MFA lecturer and instructor at Stony Brook, Southampton.Her other books are: Tearing the Silence: Being German in America, Intrusions, Floating in My Mother’s Palm, Salt Dancers, The Vision of Emma Blau, Unearned Pleasures and Other Stories.

This is a novel that is well-written, expertly constructed, and very readable. The story flows well, despite the German words and some untranslated cultural pieces like lines from songs and a few other German words. Still, a reader who hasn’t studied German can understand the core story.

Yet, I don’t know how much of this story is real, and by that, I don’t mean the plot or the characters, but the essence or the message of it. I question the goodwill of the residents of the town of Burgdorf where this story takes place, as these were residents who were sidetracked and fooled by a crazed, murderous leader, Hitler. My take from the novel is that Burgdorf, in most ways, represents the German society of the time as most of the action takes place in this town. Then, during the war, most of the people in the village feel the hatred of their leader toward all outsiders.

In the same vein, as to Nazi Germany’s actions and the stance the Germans took, what goodwill there was in the book, I got the sense that it was forced on the readers. This, however, is an author’s prerogative as well as her understandable wish to rewrite history by stressing on the human experience and some kindnesses that may have existed.

As to the central plot, during the time after the First World War, a dwarf is born to a German couple. She is Trudi Montag, the protagonist. Gertrud her mother is mentally ill and the father Leo is a library owner who lends books and gathers some pay per book, and when Trudi grows up, she also works in the library with her father.

Gertrud rejects Trudi as a baby, although later on, her husband tricks her into accepting the child. But Gertrud is not the only person who rejects Trudi and, despite all Trudi’s efforts, most of the town’s people try to make her a social outcast. When Gertrud finally dies in an asylum, Trudi and Leo live alone. Leo who was madly in love with Gertrud never encourages another woman into his life, although there are several women who like him. By the way, this together with Leo’s angelic being in other ways became another unbelievability factor for me.

In the beginning of the story, during her earlier years, Trudi grows up collecting and retelling everyone’s stories, like a village gossip. This may be partly due to her pain of being so small and not looking like others. As Trudi grows and experiences life, she learns to control herself better when it comes to spreading stories that can hurt people. Through her story collecting, however, Trudi gains insight into people, their feelings, and why they act the way they act. The town of Burgdorf and the river Rhine are important to Trudi, and her experiences in these localities impart a sense of place to the story.


Trudi and her father are against the Nazis and work against the regime, be it secretly. Although, toward the end of the plot, the resistance of the few Germans is lionized, what happened with those who were sent to camps are only mentioned. This, of course, can be due to the regime’s keeping people in the dark or else, it is what the reader is coaxed to believe.


Still, on a smaller scale, the plight of the Jewish residents of the town on a person by person basis is mentioned, and with a few like Eva, Trudi’s friend, it is elaborated a bit more. Still, in the story, the atrocities of the Nazi regime are hintingly blamed, but this blaming does not rise to the degree of what the Holocaust did to the world. What is highlighted, however, are Trudi and Leo’s efforts to hide the few Jews that they could.


Then, more interesting than the main plot for me were the subplots that shone a light on people other than Trudi, especially during the time when the rise of the Nazis wasn’t even an issue in Burgdorf. I also empathized with Trudi’s love for children with Konrad first and Hanna second.


Although I didn’t believe the gist of everything in this novel, I appreciate the book, even those sections I thought were forced or unlikely. This is because the author is an excellent storyteller and the way she uses her craft is outstanding.