Blood Brothers by Ernst Haffner

Published in Germany in 1932; published in translation by Other Press on March 3, 2015

The Blood Brothers are a group of boys (mostly in their teens) living rough and dispensing rough justice in Berlin in the early 1930s. They're all running from something -- from home, from an institution, from the law. They live in fear of apprehension, of being asked for their papers, of spending a night without food or shelter. Like hundreds of other boys in Berlin, they "prefer to starve at liberty to being half-fed in welfare."

Willi Kludas, older than the rest, jumps the wall and escapes an institution after beating one of the staff members. He takes a harrowing trip to Berlin, then scrounges for money so he can pay to sleep in a basement, buy cigarettes, or purchase the affection of a girl. His story is similar to Ludwig's, who is also arrested as a runaway. When Ludwig escapes, he is arrested for a crime he didn't commit. Of course, he runs again at his first opportunity, but not before spending time in various institutions. It is Ludwig who introduces Willi to the rest of the gang.

Willi and Ludwig are the primary characters but other gang members make regular appearances. Fred joins the gang after escaping from the room into which his father has locked him. Walter is frail but is deemed heroic after being shot in a dustup with a rival gang. Heinz can't hold his liquor. Fred cooks up most of the illegal schemes to keep the gang in money. Konrad and Jonny provide the gang's muscle. Ulli leads (more or less) an "affiliated" gang.

The novel's moral focus sharpens when the gang turns to picking pockets and stealing purses for survival. Not all gang members are comfortable with theft. Even the ones who steal tend to be decent young men who did not choose their lives, who commit crimes as a last resort, preferring to work when they can -- although, without papers, their work is limited to shoveling snow and mending shoes. But what can gang members do who disagree with the crimes the gang commits? The Blood Brothers take care of each other with a fierce loyalty that was missing in their own families. Refusing to participate would be an unforgivable measure of disloyalty. Is it worth leaving the gang in order to hold one's moral center, even if that means losing the protection and companionship that are essential to surviving on the street? Are the other means of survival even worse than stealing?

Blood Brothers conveys a strong sense of realism. Ernst Haffner draws a sharp contrast between the Alexanderplatz portrayed in the cinema, a place full of cheap thrills and champagne lounges where "aristocratic gangsters won't do a job except in tops and tails," and the reality of homeless drifters, desperate prostitutes, brutal pimps, brutal police, and the unemployed who depend on casual crime for food. Poverty bedevils youth and the elderly alike.

Blood Brothers doesn't quite achieve the dramatic impact that Haffner must have intended but it does generate sympathy for its unfortunate characters. Except for Willi and Ludwig, there is too little to differentiate the characters from each other. The novel does a better job of depicting the impact of poverty on groups of young men than it does of telling individual stories. The ending is a bit rushed and a tad preachy. The novel is nonetheless an effective condemnation of a system that it more interested in whether people have "papers" than jobs. It's also a testament to the human spirit -- the drive not just to survive but to live free -- and to the bonds of friendship forged by hardship.

RECOMMENDED

Wrecked by Charlotte Roche

First published in German in 2011; published in translation by Grove (Black Cat) on May 7, 2013

The first several pages of Wrecked are devoted to the narrator's frank and detailed description of the steps she takes to give sexual pleasure to her husband. Elizabeth Kiehl's narration is alternately clinical and erotic, and occasionally touches upon the science and psychology and politics of sex. Readers who don't approve of graphic language will want to stay far away from Wrecked.

The sex is followed by a considerably less interesting discussion of cooking, which turns into a discussion of motherhood, from Elizabeth's perspective as both the daughter of a domineering mother and as the mother of an eight-year-old girl, the product of her first marriage. This leads to the story of how Elizabeth met her current husband (Georg), which leads to an analysis of the role sex plays in a marriage, which amounts to: love is just an excuse to have sex. Filling out organ donor cards (because love is intertwined with death) is the height of their romantic relationship. Elizabeth wants to have sex with a man who isn't her husband (but only with her husband's approval), a desire that provides what passes for dramatic tension in the novel: will she or won't she?

As the title suggests, Elizabeth is a wreck. She has panic attacks. She has body issues. She has odor issues. She has control issues. She is plagued by feelings of guilt. She hates her mother. She hates her stepmother. She has a father complex. She has worms (did we really need to know that?). She is rigidly opposed to change. She is "hostile to life." She often contemplates suicide. She's ambivalent about some of her husband's kinkier desires but she's unable to say "no." She fears that her husband (and every other man she knows) is a pedophile who will sexually abuse her daughter. She is always afraid that something bad is about to happen -- with some justification, given the bad things that have happened to her. According to her therapist, her hypersexuality temporarily displaces her fear. Therapy defines her.

When she's not recounting the tragedies that have comprised her life, Elizabeth reveals every thought that passes through her mind, from the environmental impact of dishwashing to corporal punishment to gray hair and breast size and the many ways in which she and everyone she knows might die. A character with this many tribulations and odd thoughts should be interesting, but the engaging aspects of Elizabeth's stream-of-consciousness narration are too often overshadowed by her tedious nature.

As I was reading Wrecked, I was trying to work out whether Charlotte Roche meant it to be a comedy. Parts of the novel are quite funny (including Elizabeth's interaction with her desperately needed therapist, with whom she discusses -- you guessed it -- her sexual fantasies), and at least some of the humor is clearly intentional. Other bits made me laugh because they were just so over-the-top -- like deciding which partner she and Georg should choose in a brothel (because she feels a need to give Georg everything he wants) or offering to show him her worms. I give Roche credit for her humor, which is the novel's redeeming value. On the other hand, the story's most dramatic moment, recounted from Elizabeth's memory, seems contrived, created only to add tragedy to Elizabeth's life. In fact, I came to believe that it was inserted into the story just to give Elizabeth something meaningful to talk about during therapy.

As a psychological study of an extreme case, Wrecked is moderately interesting, if a little creepy. As an exaggerated commentary on therapy and therapists, Wrecked has value. As an exploration of the relationship between sex and death, or a statement about feminism, or a complaint about the unfair expectations placed upon wives and mothers, or an illustration of a child's rebellion against a parent or an indictment of monogamy and double-standards ... well, that's all been done before in novels that make those points without lecturing the reader. Perhaps I should be sympathetic to Elizabeth despite (or because of) her maddening nature, but Roche only made me feel happy to have her out of my reading life when the novel ended. I appreciated some of what Roche is trying to do, and I enjoyed some of the comedy as well as a few of the less clinical descriptions of Roche's sexual adventures, but since the novel ultimately left me feeling wrecked, I can't recommend it.

NOT RECOMMENDED

More Beer by Jakob Arjouni

 

First published in Germany in 1987; published in US by Melville House on June 7, 2011

There is more story in this short (176 page) novel than you'll find in most 400 page thrillers. That's because Jakob Arjouni doesn't waste words. Using language that is both efficient and precise, Arjouni manages to set evocative scenes, create convincing characters, and tell a story that is lively, meaningful, and entertaining.

The Ecological Front put an end to the pollution emitted from a chemical company's waste pipe by blowing it up. The four people involved deny responsibility for the contemporaneous shooting death of the company's owner, Friedrich Böllig. Böllig's death is fortunate news for the rival chemical companies that want to demonize the Greens but it also seems to benefit Böllig's young wife. The lawyer defending the four activists believes there was a fifth participant in the sabotage who might have been involved in the shooting but his clients won't betray their colleague. The lawyer hires private investigator Kemal Kayankaya to find the missing culprit. Spanning only three days, Kayankaya's investigation is impeded by violent hoodlums, corrupt (and equally violent) police officers, an unethical doctor, a reporter, and Böllig's family, among others. As Kayankaya continues to dig (in between incidents of getting his head bashed in), he discovers that the circumstances surrounding Böllig's death are ... complicated.

The story is entertaining but it is the main character that makes More Beer worth reading. Kayankaya is a Turk by birth and, despite having lived his entire life in Germany, he is regarded as an undesirable outsider. His fellow Germans expect him to be uncouth, sexist, and odoriferous. Instead, he's cantankerous, tenacious, and a bit philosophical. As the German-Turk version of the hard-drinking noir detective, Kayankaya is at once familiar and strange.

More Beer was first published in Germany in 1987. It is the second of four Kayankaya novels. Kayankaya meets a character in More Beer who shows up again in the next novel -- One Man, One Murder -- but Arjouni doesn't engage in the sort of novel-to-novel character development that makes it necessary to read the series in order. I don't think More Beer is quite as good as One Man, One Murder, but it's nonetheless a quick, engaging read. Readers who enjoy international mysteries and those who want to sample a different shade of noir should give Arjouni's Kayankaya novels a try.

RECOMMENDED

One Man, One Murder by Jakob Arjouni

Frist published in Germany in 1991; published in English by Melville House on June 7, 2011

Wikipedia tells me that Jakob Arjouni is a German writer and that One Man, One Murder (originally published in 1991 as Ein Mann, ein Mord) is the third of four novels featuring the Frankfurt detective Kemal Kayankaya. I haven't read the first two but I don't think my lack of familiarity with the series hindered my enjoyment of this one.

The story takes place in 1989. In the tradition of noir private eyes, Kayankaya is wondering how to pay the rent on his ratty office when a client walks through the door. Manuel Weidenbusch has fallen in love with a Thai woman, has paid her debt to release her from the "club" that employs her, and has paid an additional sum for a forged passport to keep her in the country after her visa expires. The phony passport purveyor has apparently kidnapped Sri Dao Rakdee; hence Weidenbusch's need for Kayankaya's services.

Kayankaya's investigation takes him to the brothel where Sri Dao Rakdee was working off her debt, to unhelpful immigration authorities, to a refugee organization, to a cabaret, to jail, and to a dead body. Before bringing the investigation to a satisfying conclusion, Kayankaya encounters, and makes fun of, a number of racial purists who view the good old days of German nationalism with nostalgia. Although he's a German citizen, Kayankaya's parents are Turks and he's viewed with suspicion by many of his fellow Germans. Kayankaya has a cheeky, anti-authoritarian attitude that shines when he confronts police officers, immigration officials, and paper-pushers in the civil service.

The novel delivers an intelligent take on illegal immigration in Germany without being preachy. Some readers object to political discussions in novels; those readers might want to give this one a pass. Politics is overshadowed by plot, however, and although he's an advocate for the underdog and takes care of his friends, Kayankaya isn't what you'd call a liberal do-gooder. He fits the mold of the anti-hero: he's irreverent and hard-headed and doesn't have any great belief in justice (at least, not of the law-and-order variety), yet he has his own kind of honor, a dogged determination to dig up the unpleasant truths that corrupt officials and illicit businessmen would prefer to keep buried.

Lesser writers should take lessons from Arjouni. His prose is efficient; no words are wasted in this brief novel. He avoids clichés and his dialog is both realistic and acid-tinged. Still, Arjouni isn't so minimalist that he forgets the necessities of good fiction: he creates atmosphere by painting colorful images of a drab city, and he gives his characters personality without resorting to stereotypes. He keeps his intelligent plot moving at a brisk pace. Arjouni reminds me of Joe Gores, an American writer of detective fiction whose work exhibits the same admirable qualities. Arjouni adds a bit of social realism to the mix, giving One Man, One Murder an added dimension that I appreciated. Fans of hard-boiled detective fiction should enjoy this novel as much as I did.

RECOMMENDED