Jake Geismar cut his teeth as a foreign correspondent in pre-war Berlin. When he returns in 1945 to cover the Potsdam conference he finds the city unrecognisable – streets have vanished beneath the rubble, familiar landmarks truncated by high explosive. But amongst the ruins Berliners survive, including some he knew and, miraculously, his lost love, Lena. However, in the same way she refused to leave with him before the war, Lena won’t join him now without finding her husband and Emil has disappeared from the safe care of the Americans who, turning a blind eye to his links with Hitler, want his expertise as a rocket designer for themselves.
Trawling through the shambles of the city, through the illegal night clubs and the thriving black market, Jake discovers that the twilight war of intrigue between west and east has already begun and that he could quite easily be one of its first casualties.
This superb novel from the author of Leaving Berlin is now rightly considered a modern classic.
Trawling through the shambles of the city, through the illegal night clubs and the thriving black market, Jake discovers that the twilight war of intrigue between west and east has already begun and that he could quite easily be one of its first casualties.
This superb novel from the author of Leaving Berlin is now rightly considered a modern classic.
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Reviews
Magnificent
Kanon writes for grown-ups, not for day-dreamers. That's why he is so good.
Provocative, fully realised fiction that explores, as only fiction can, the reality of history as it is lived by individual men and women.
A story of wondrous humanity in the face of insane savagery