‘The Sum of It All, The Darkness’ tells the story of a small child during the Second World War.
The saga begins with an old man dying of cancer in a hospital. As he drifts in and out of a coma, he slips back and forth between the present reality and his past life. It begins with a child arriving in Dresden with his family after being deported by the Nazis from his native land. His father was shipped in as a ‘volunteer’ to work in a furniture factory converted to the manufacture of V-1 rocket nose cones assembled out of plywood and toxic resins with other nationals brought in for that purpose.
Once the family arrives both parents must work at his project as directed by the authorities.
The boy soon becomes aware about the realities of life under the repressive regime, but still finds childish amusement with his brother during the constant hunger and danger that is part of his everyday existence.
His nights are continually plagued by a frightening dream/vision that he had when he was very young all through the War and the bombing of Dresden.
The boy falls ill and through the efforts of his parents as well as the bribing of certain officials he’s clandestinely put into a hospital.
He’s declared dead by a physician, but somehow is noticed by the attendant sent to take him to the morgue that he’s still alive.
Strange coincidences keep saving him from death through the holocaust of the city and later during the battle at the Russian Front. Even though the old man sees himself as a child in his comatose visions he’s also aware that he already has lived through those events. Now in bed he must relive the same events as when he was growing up, but in the context of an adult’s mind and understanding.
The Saga takes the reader through the child/man experiences to the end of the war and the last gasping days of the Third Reich when staying alive depended on luck, divine providence and the ability to bribe the antagonists or friends.
It concludes with the family escaping the Soviet army into the U.S. Zone before the allies had set any definite lines of occupation.
