It's a short and brutal read that takes you into Estonia during WWII and 20 years later under the Soviet occupation. I was commenting that it left my soul bruised since I cared so much about the characters and to read about how they ended up, all due to petty bureocratic greed just really took it out of me. I knew, from an intellectual point of view that it was bad under the Soviet regime. Just not how bad it would have been after the 60's after the failed revolutons and the witchunts.

Great book, but I don't know if I could ever re-read it. It's that sad.