novel's prologue
War has a heavy hand that bruises everyone it touches no matter how slight and passing the touch. Even those who never experienced more than the Cold War grew up marked by that experience. " Duck and cover" were words carved into children's hearts across America and perhaps across Russia as well. In my childhood people built bomb shelters underground in their backyards and openly discussed whether to shoot neighbors who tried to enter their shelters, making no attempt to hide those discussions from their children. I went to one school that required students in k thru 8 to wear military style dog tags on chains around their necks. We were inspected for those metal tags every morning and those who forgot them were sent home. We all understood that the tags were intended to identify us if we died in school. My father explained tha...