The ultimate social concern of Ursula Hegi is the question of what it means to be German after World War II. Born in Germany in 1946, she grew up relatively ignorant of the war and the Holocaust. Her emigration to America at age eighteen gave her an awareness of a different view of Germany. Hegi has done years of research, including visits to Germany to interview people who lived through the war. Her novel Stones from the River is an attempt to break the silence regarding the uglier aspects of modern Germany history.

Stones from the River follows the fates of the residents of a fictional town near Dusseldorf from 1915 to 1952. Burgdorf, Germany, is an average small town in which most of the residents know one another. It is a town where neighbors help one another through individual crises, rejoice in each other's happiness, and grieve together...