Caldwell shines in this novel, which i consider greater than "Tobacco Road." He had just returned from Russia in 1942 where the Germans were pounding the Russians (now our allies) and in his story of love and pasionate hate slides the portrait of brutality; the torture and murder of chidlren, the group slayings of russians who dig their own graves and passively die, falling into them "just right." We thought Me Lai was bad?! Well, the Germans beat us to the prize of animalistic brutality. Caldwell knows how to write about ignorance and hunger better than any writer I have encountered. I also love the style of as few words as possible to cpaint the picture, but each word potent with paint. ( )