Hooligan

March 15, 2018
In Germany, vigilant policing forces hooligans to schedule their brawls (or matches; also known as the playing third half ) far away from stadiums, increasingly separating soccer hooliganism from the game itself. Heiko and his friends fight for Hannover, the city as much as the team they watch less and less often. This brutal bildungsroman catches Heiko in crisis, as his uncle's promises to promote him start ringing empty, his closest friends make new lives for themselves, and his dogfight-promoting landlord gets involved in shadier and shadier business. In a story shot through with flashbacks to the origins of Heiko's intense emotional pain and depicting a troubled, multicultural Germany (Heiko lives to fight but hates skinheads and neo-Nazis), Winkler offers a compelling story of a lost young man desperate to find his place. Some stylistic oddities could stem from either translator or author, but they're only mildly distracting. A winner of the Aspekte Literature Prize for Best Debut Novel and a finalist for the German Book Award, Hooligan has a brooding power and enough surprises to keep readers on their toes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)