The Glass Room

Narrator Jefferson Mays delivers a family epic that spans several generations, beginning in pre-WWII Europe. In Czechoslovakia, Viktor and Liesel Landauer build their dream house, but as political events unfold all around them, the Jewish couple must abandon the house. The novel weaves their stories and those of several figures who subsequently live in the house. Mays's tone, clipped and cold in places, reflects the spread of fascism and the impending war. He also conveys the sexual tension that emanates from the very start of the story. Despite the novel's rambling sentence structure, he gives credible voice to the characters with purposeful enunciation of German-accented English. M.R. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

October 19, 2009
The latest from novelist Mawer (The Fall) begins with great promise, as Jewish newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer meet with architect Rainier von Abt, not just an architect but "a poet...of light and space and form," who builds their dream home, a "modern house...adapted to the future rather than the past, to the openness of modern living." World events, however, are about to overtake 1930s Czechoslovakia. Viktor, like most in the community, dismisses rumors of impending pogroms-"The only people who hold the German economy together are the Jews"-but once the signs of Nazi occupation become impossible to ignore, the Landauers must abandon their beloved home. In a bizarre twist of fate, however, Liesel insists on rescuing single mother Katra, unaware that Katra is Viktor's new mistress. As the world spins into chaos, the highly symbolic Landauer house is the only constant; though it shifts identities more than once, the house remains "ageless," a place "that defines the very existence of time." Mawer's writing and characters are rich, but his twisty plot depends too often on unbelievable coincidences, especially in the conclusion.