Wow! eBook
Berlin Cantata
Author(s): Jeffrey Lewis (Author)
- Publisher: Haus Publishing Ltd
- Publication Date: 28 Mar. 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 300 pages
- ISBN-10: 1908323205
- ISBN-13: 9781908323200
Book Description
A city that has lost one of its limbs and is receiving a miraculous gift, a little bump under the flesh, where the limb is just beginning to grow back… Thus does the American girl in Jeffrey Lewis s remarkable polyphonic novel describe Berlin and the remnant Jews, secret GDR Jews…Soviet Jews…Jews who d fled and come back with the victors, Jews who were lost mandarins now, Jews who d believed in the universality of man and maybe still did whom she finds at a Day of Atonement gathering in the eastern part of the city in a year soon after the Wall fell. Berlin Cantata deploys thirteen voices to tell a story not only of atonement, but of discovery, loss, identity, intrigue, mystery, insanity, sadomasochism and lies. At its centre is a country house owned successively by Jews, Nazis and Communists. In the country house, the American girl seeks her hidden past. In the girl, a local reporter seeks redemption. In the reporter, a false hero of the past seeks exposure. In the false hero, the American girl seeks a guide. And so it goes, a round of conspiracy and desire. Even as he describes his native city, the false hero describes the characters of Berlin Cantata: We dined on wreckage. We were not afraid to beg. We continued our long tradition of believing either in nothing or too much.
Editorial Reviews
Review
The great strengths in Jeffrey Lewis’ previous four novels have now been brought together in such a happy way in Berlin Cantata, with striking characters, atmosphere and plot, that a clear career arc emerges. He has been painstakingly, novel by novel, constructing an oeuvre that puts him in the ranks of the country’s must-read authors. In Berlin Cantata Lewis plays his multifarious voices like a conducting maestro with the instruments in his orchestra. You never know what the next voice will say until he or she says exactly what you suddenly realize you’ve been waiting to hear. Read on. –Peter Davis, director of Hearts and Minds, and author of If You Came This Way
In BERLIN CANTATA, Jeffrey Lewis has written a stunning novel, as deep and intriguing as the city itself. The varied cast of characters tell their own stories as they wind their tortured and tortuous way through the dark past toward some kind of understanding, if not atonement. I was utterly absorbed by this book. –Lee Smith
About the Author
Jeffrey Lewis has won a string of awards for his novels including the Independent Publishers Gold Medal for Literary Fiction. He has also received two Emmys and the Writers Guild Award for his work as a writer and producer on Hill Street Blues. He is the author of Adam the King, Meritocracy: A Love Story, The Conference of the Birds and Theme Song for an Old Show (Other Press).
