The Element of Water [Paperback]

'Resonating with poignant imagery, this outstanding novel examines the best and worst of human nature' The Times

In pre-war Germany, two boys grow up together inseparable. However, as adulthood approaches and Nazism continues its inexorable march, Dahl and Quantz can no longer reconcile their childhood friendship as one becomes an SS officer and the other a pawn in the intelligence unit. Thirteen years later, their children meet: a woman and a man exposed to the sins of their fathers.

Stevie Davies's previous books include Impassioned Clay and Unbridled Spirits. She has won the Fawcett Book Prize, been long-listed for the Booker Prize and been shortlisted twice for the Arts Council of Wales Book of the Year Prize and the Portico Prize. She is a respected historian and literary critic who reviews regularly for the Independent, holds an honorary appointment as Senior Lecturer at Roehampton Institute and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives near Manchester.

Michael Quantz transiently haunted the lakeside, pausing, screwing up his eyes against the sheen of grey light. Waves spilt at his feet, drizzle fell with calm steadiness, and he found himself at a standstill.
One rarely indulged the luxury of thought nowadays. All did without sleep, catnapping in odd half-hours or getting caught short, jerking to unconsciousness with a mouthful of sourness, a staleness of cigarette smoke, lungs coated in a raw residue of tar, sweat caking the body within its uniform. Jolted awake, there was surprise at having been taken by the permanently denied sleep, which stalked like a predatory lover to whom no upright man should surrender.