Told in two volumes, Arise the Dead—part memoir, part historical fiction—spans the period between 1914 and 1945. The two books concentrate on the lives of real people—the author's parents, the author, a young pilot from New Jersey in WW1, and others—as well as some fictional characters, all of whom lived through one or both of the wars and were profoundly affected personally by them. Arise the Dead II focuses on the Second World War and how the war affected the author's family living just outside of London and in the path of the German bombing missions. It tells the story of how the author's parents coped when their Sussex village home was bombed and destroyed on November 11, 1940.