A spellbinding story of epic scope, Quartet for the End of Time shifts from the United States during the Great Depression to Europe in the Second World War, and to the Nazi prison camp where French POW Olivier Messiaen composed the musical piece that gives this ambitious novel its title. Through four main characters — an impoverished veteran of the First World War and his son, and the daughter and son of an influential Washington judge — author Johanna Skibsrud explores themes of justice, memory and moral responsibility.