A welcome refurbishing of a masterpiece of literary modernism, one of the most significant German novels of the 20th century.
“On Tuesday, 14 August 1928 von Arnim planted a bullet in the body of Pussi Uhl”: no, it’s not The Sopranos but instead a classic German novel of the criminal demimonde of the Weimar era.
Franz Biberkopf is fresh out of prison, where he drew a few years for killing a woman. A low-level criminal otherwise, he finds himself in a different world, one in which Nazis are beginning to occupy the stage and people are lining up to take sides all around him. He flirts with fascism, but so does everyone; one of his confidants is outraged that a friend married an American woman who turned out to be a “Negress” and who, when confronted with the fact of her ancestry in divorce court, tried to sue for damages. "Gorgeous woman, petal-white, descended from Negroes, maybe dating back to the seventeenth century. Damages.” Franz soon tires of politics, even if he buys the newspaper with “the green swastika on the masthead” and believes its lurid tales. Meanwhile, he makes halfhearted efforts to live a straight life, mostly because, as one chapter title tells us, “The Police HQ is on Alexanderplatz,” the Berlin square that Biberkopf haunts. Still, he can’t help but fall back into bad habits. There are other characters at work along the Alexanderplatz, though, more fantastic as the Ulyssean story progresses: at one point, anticipating Wim Wenders’ film Wings of Desire, two angels accompany Franz, “two angels on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz in 1928 alongside a former manslaughterer, then burglar and pimp.” They provide clarity, for now death is stalking Franz—and everyone he knows and the whole of Berlin. American readers will have to adjust their ears to the translation’s frequent use of Cockney (“Well, who’d’you fink, the fat girl, coz I had no goods left on me”), but Hofmann’s version is vigorous and fresh, bringing Döblin to a new generation of readers.
A welcome refurbishing of a masterpiece of literary modernism, one of the most significant German novels of the 20th century.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68137-199-3
Page Count: 502
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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