Roger Pulvers

And there's one scene, I'm sure you remember, Kate, where he goes into the Russian village and he gives birth to a Russian baby.

And I think that's very well described, too.

I think there's about, I don't know what percentage of the novel, but perhaps certainly more than half is maybe even up to two thirds is about the, the goings on within the relationships in the German battalion that's stationed there for those 47 days that they were at the Tolstoy estate.

And there's not all that much about the Russians, Russian soldiers don't figure very much in this novel at all.

And, um,

For someone who, if you're a reader, is very interested in the German army or what relationships within an army at war, I think this is very interesting.

But I would have liked to have seen a little more of the other side as well.

Now, that's the novelist's choice, so that's fine.

That's what he chose to do.

But I found that a little top-heavy.

I don't know.

What did you feel about that?

Did you...

Were you very interested in all the officers and their relationships and so on?

It was almost as important as the relationship between Paul and Katerina, which is the main love relationship.

Yeah, that's true.

I mean, the novel doesn't set out to be a novel about the Russian soldiers and so on, but I would have liked, I mean, it does take place in Russia and I would have liked to know

what Russians were thinking about this war.

Of course, it's made clear in a number of places, particularly through the main characters' dialogue, but just seemed, I think perhaps, knowing what Stephen Conti wrote for his first novel, I think he's just much more interested in Germany than Russia.

I may be wrong on that, there's only speculation.