Items related to Willenbrock: A Novel
A fascinating glimpse into the world of one prosperous man, set upon by the forces of the new world.
Bernd Willenbrock is the owner of a used-car dealership in the newly unified Germany. In the nascent free market of Central Europe, the former East German engineer seems to be the paradigm of the new world: a successful businessman, an owner of real estate, and a generous husband. Prosperity seems guaranteed by a steady stream of cash-only clients from Eastern Europe, and plans for a glitzy new showroom are firmly underway. Yet little by little, a series of ever-more menacing incidents—an attempted break-in, the theft of several cars, a vicious beating--erode his innermost certainties. No amount of locks and latches, it seems, can contain his growing obsession with external safety or stop the coming violence.
Bernd Willenbrock is the owner of a used-car dealership in the newly unified Germany. In the nascent free market of Central Europe, the former East German engineer seems to be the paradigm of the new world: a successful businessman, an owner of real estate, and a generous husband. Prosperity seems guaranteed by a steady stream of cash-only clients from Eastern Europe, and plans for a glitzy new showroom are firmly underway. Yet little by little, a series of ever-more menacing incidents—an attempted break-in, the theft of several cars, a vicious beating--erode his innermost certainties. No amount of locks and latches, it seems, can contain his growing obsession with external safety or stop the coming violence.
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About the Author:
Christoph Hein, novelist, playwright, essayist, is among Europe’s most respected literary and political voices. A former president of PEN Germany and author of the internationally acclaimed novels The Distant Lover and The Tango Player, he lives in Berlin.
From Publishers Weekly:
An enterprising used-car salesman in post-Iron Curtain Berlin navigates the capitalist world of shady deals and armed robbery in this sharp, darkly humorous novel by East German novelist/playwright Hein (The Tango Player). Though German reunification brought an end to Bernd Willenbrock's 20-year engineering career in East Germany, he now presides, alongside his Polish assistant, Jurek, over an exceptionally profitable used-car business that's frequented mostly by Russians and Poles. Willenbrock provides well for his lovely boutique-owner wife, Susanne, yet he's still a ladies' man and has several ongoing dalliances with women who wander onto his lot and end up with much more than a good deal on a clunker. In the unsettled climate, a rash of thefts troubles Willenbrock, prompting him to hire a night watchman to guard the lot. A particularly traumatic robbery at the Willenbrock country home further erodes his sense of security, and paranoia sets in. While his plans to build a new showroom move ahead, the thieves from the break-in are apprehended, but then merely deported without punishment. This injustice pushes Willenbrock to take his Russian friend Krylov up on an offer to settle the matter privately as a "friendly favor," but in the end he thinks better of it and accepts a handgun instead. The tense climax tests his mettle and forces him to finally confront a long-held aversion to weapons and violence. Hein's expertly translated novel is brisk, clever and engrossing, and Willenbrock makes a compelling protagonist an uncomplicated man faced with all the opportunities and pitfalls of post-Wall Germany.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherPicador
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 0312423683
- ISBN 13 9780312423681
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages336
- Rating
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