bossdom

Whereas volume 1 dealt with Esau as a young schoolchild in the years after the Great War and volume 2 with his formative years in the late 1920s, volume 3 skips the tumultuous Nazi epoch and begins with Esau's return home at the conclusion of World War II to his parents' house and small grocery store in the socially and geographically isolated town of Bossdom.

The novel concludes with the financial collapse of the family store and with it the metaphoric demise of the Matt family and the village of Bossdom. When the state transforms the store into a Konsumgesellschaft, the town loses its point of orientation, and it becomes apparent that the rise of communism has succeeded in destroying the bonds that held the village together.