by Ann Widdecombe (Author)
The story of Klaus-Pierre Dessin, the illegitimate son of a young French woman and a high-ranking German soldier, who fall in love in Paris during the Nazi occupation in WWII. His father is killed in the German retreat and his mother is faced with bringing up her young son on her own.
Told in the first person, KP starts in 1989 as the Berlin wall falls and recollects life from the time as a toddler he and his mother took refuge with an aunt in Provence after her Catholic family in Paris had disowned her. The suffering of taunts and bulleying from French children - 'the German brat, the German brat' and the eventual move to KP's German family near Lubeck on the West German side of the West-East German border. There on an estate recovering from war KP learns about life. He is clever, multi-lingual, goes to university in Heidelberg and also in England (Oxford) where he discovers that people are similar regardless of nationality. And he falls in love....
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Edition: First Edition
Publisher: W&N
Published: 14 Jul 2005
ISBN 10: 0297829580
ISBN 13: 9780297829584
Book Overview: First novel THE CLEMATIS TREE - a hb Sunday Times bestseller 'A compelling story about the way a family copes with a catastrophe', Bel Mooney, The Times / 'This book is a delight, a very polished read', Peter Stanford, Catholic Herald / Ruth Rendell, in the Sunday Times, wrote, 'You want to go on reading, you want to know what happens.' A Mori poll showed Ann Widdecombe as the best-known Tory MP equal with Kenneth Clarke. Ann Widdecombe has starred opposite Louis Theroux, appeared in countless TV shows, had a spell as agony aunt for 'The Guardian'.