Back to Back

The moving story of a brother and a sister caught in the tide of the Cold War Kathe is a Jewish sculptor living in East Berlin. A survivor of the Nazi era, she is a fervent socialist who has been using her political connections to secure more significant commissions. Devoted entirely to success, she is a cruel and abrasive mother to her children. She barely acknowledges Ella's vulnerable loneliness and Thomas's quiet aspirations, and her hard-nosed brutality forces her children to build an imaginary world as a shelter from the coldness that surrounds them. As the Berlin Wall goes up, dreams are shattered, lives fall apart and this dark fairytale of East Germany unfolds.

Summary

The moving story of a brother and a sister caught in the tide of the Cold War Käthe is a Jewish sculptor living in East Berlin.

Report

Like an expert geologist, Franck is digging deep into her family's extraordinary history creating things of beauty from its dark recesses. Diamond-hard and full of glittering prose, Back to Back is a powerful and moving book. I suspect there are more gems to come David Annand Sunday Telegraph

Product details

• Authors: Julia Franck
• Assisted by: Anthea Bell (Translation)
• Publisher: Vintage UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 30.11.2014
• EAN: 9780099572251
• ISBN: 978-0-09-957225-1
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 129 mm x 198 mm x 21 mm
• Series: VINTAGE BOOKS
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Fiction > Narrative literature > Contemporary literature (from 1945); FICTION / War & Military, Historical fiction, FICTION / Family Life / Siblings, War & combat fiction, Family life fiction, War, combat and military adventure fiction, The Cold War, East Germany, Ddr, c 1945 to c 1990 (the Cold War period)