Man in the Box
The Lukassers seem to be an ordinary Austrian family. Dr. Robert Weiss had passed through their village years ago, a stranger. He rented a room from them for the night. Niki Lukasser was a baby then, fighting the fever of appendicitis. Dr. Weiss saved Niki's life that night, and accepted no payment. It was just what you did for another human being.
Years later, Dr. Weiss appears again at the door. It is 1943, and he is asking to be hidden from the Germans. This also, it now appears to Niki, is just what you do for another human being.
Mr. Lukasser walls Dr. Weiss into the barn loft. Then begins, beneath the quiet surface of Sankt Vero, a chain of powerful…
Thomas Moran is the author of The Man in the Box, winner of the Book-of-the-Month Club® Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, The World I Made for Her, and Water, Carry Me. His novels have been translated into seven languages.
