George Heisler

George’s story is the main focus of The Seventh Cross. However, we get to know him gradually and fragmentally, as he – and others – revisit their memories of the past. In a sense, we become familiar with two characters over the course of the novel: with the handsome young George as he was before his imprisonment, and with the desperate fugitive whose journey we follow.

Certainly, George is a flawed hero, and therefore a credible one. The old George abandoned his wife and child, and the escaped George has no qualms about using people to get by. He generally accepts help with minimal gratitude, and at times his thoughts take a darker, brutal turn towards the people he encounters. The irritating Pikestail has “no idea how close to his end he had come a second earlier,” and George toys with the idea of murdering the foreigner who...