Bread and Salt

Book excerpt: Germany, 1914. Three young sisters are torn from their mother and each other, sent to the country to do the work of farmers off fighting in the Great War. They struggle to endure the painful separation. Sofie, Amalia, and Dora Bauer reunite with their mother at the war's end and come of age during the Weimar years, a time of resistance, retaliation, food shortages, and wild inflation, when a cabbage costs a billion marks and a wheelbarrow of money can't buy a loaf of bread. Their passions and search for safety and meaning in a violent and chaotic world lead them to make religious, political, and romantic choices that test the limits of their powerful bond. As circumstances wrench them apart once again, Sofie, Amalia, and Dora fight to stay connected, sustained by memory, story and fierce love.