How do you become a man? A lover? A husband? A father? An ex-husband?
Following his bestseller The Glory of Life, the story of Franz Kafka’s last love, Michael Kumpmüller writes on becoming a man today. At a time when the modern man has to master more roles than ever before, the danger of failure is even greater – but so is the pleasure of success.
We meet Georg, a student of musicology and modern composers, when a new woman comes into his life in his mid-twenties. She will resolve a problem of his, he will set out into life with her, will have children, and yet his marriage will not be happy. He will wonder why, what it has to do with his authoritarian father, a patriarch of the old school whose many affairs wreck his family, and he will venture to take a great step into a new love. But Georg is no longer free; he is still the father of children who, ultimately, become the constants of love in his life. He will come to know himself through them, and will cling to them when everything else seems about to disintegrate.
With his expressive, poetically limpid language, Michael Kumpfmüller traces his sensitive protagonist’s dreams, fears and hopes, and shows the power that lies in the wish to love and be loved. This is a fine coming-of-age novel, tracing the tensions of the path taken today by many men who expect a great deal of themselves – and of whom a great deal is expected.
“Michael Kumpfmüller is the most versatile of the major authors of his generation. In his novels, he presents a whole universe of registers, narrative tones and anti-heroes.” Florian Illies
