Author(s): Rosmarie Waldrop; Ben Lerner (Introduction by)

Fiction | Jordi | Rachel

"Wonderfully, relentlessly absorbing, Hanky's several overlapping tales leave one marvelling at the beauty, economy, and humor with which Waldrop interweaves the complex tensions of Hitler's Germany in a family drama of repeated infidelity. Delightfully rich and bawdy and as strong-willed as its characters." - Lydia Davis"Josef and Frederika Seifert made a bad marriage - he so metaphysical, she, furious frustrated singer, furious frustrated femme fatale, unfaithful within two months of the wedding day. The setting is small town Germany between the wars; the Seiferts are just those 'ordinary people' who helped Hitler rise, bequeathing their daughter, who tells their story, a legacy of grief and guilt. Rosmarie Waldrop's haunting novel, superbly intelligent, evocative and strange, reverberates in the memory for a long time, a song for the dead, a judgment." - Angela Carter