Fear

August 14, 2017
At the start of German author Kurbjuweit’s unsettling U.S. debut, Randolph Tiefenthaler visits his unresponsive 77-year-old father, Hermann, in an institution that at first appears to be a care facility, but is in fact a prison. Hermann is serving time for the shooting death of Dieter Tiberius, Randolph’s downstairs neighbor in Berlin. Randolph’s narration shifts back in forth in time between his “happy” childhood, when he nevertheless feared being shot by his gun-loving father, and the recent past, when he fears what Dieter may do to his family. Dieter, initially solicitous to his new upstairs neighbors, begins leaving sexually suggestive writings addressed to Rebecca, Randolph’s wife, and letters suggesting that Randolph and Rebecca are sexually abusing their children. Kurbjuweit generates suspense by making the reader wonder what exactly precipitates Dieter’s killing, who is really responsible, and what the reader might do in the Tiefenthalers’ place. The question of whether any of us is capable of murder is not new, and while Kurbjuweit’s characters are also not unique, we care enough about these flawed people to keep turning the pages.

September 1, 2017
Berlin architect Randolph Tiefenthaler is visiting his father in a prison, after the senior Tiefenthaler, at 77, is sentenced for shooting and killing Randolph's difficult neighbor, Dieter Tiberius. The story, as told by Randolph, goes from his childhood, when his car-salesman father collected guns and home was a place where you could get shot, to his adult life made unbearable by Tiberius, who lived in the flat below his. It starts when Tiberius, a fat, ugly dwarf, falls in love with Randolph's wife, Rebecca, and sends her poems and erotic letters and escalates to public accusations that the Tiefenthalers are sexually abusing their young children, Paul and Fay. Randolph consults police, social-welfare officials, and lawyers, but none can offer solutions to the situation, which ironically rejuvenates his tepid marriage. In his first novel translated into English, German author and journalist Kurbjuweit examines a life of privilege irrevocably marked by fear and moral dilemma, as the narrative takes a final turn. Cerebral crime fiction with an ethical core.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)