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.

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.

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. (front flap)