220
Book · 2013
Bricks and Mortar
Im SteinIn an unnamed eastern German city, the local sex trade shifts from the underground economy of the communist era into corporate brothels and real estate speculation following reunification. The story traces prostitutes, clients, enforcers, and club owners—including an aging jockey searching for his runaway daughter, a newcomer from Bielefeld investing in mega-brothels, and a wounded criminal left bleeding in the street.
Your call
Already know it? Recommend it too.
Details
Around the Web
A book "of yearnings, of tipping consciousness, of loss of control" is how the reviewer describes Clemens Meyer's novel. A richly informed book that can truly measure up to Hubert Fichte's works on prostitution in St. Pauli. Enchanted and exhilarated, she reels out of this world that Meyer portrays as wicked yet "gorgeous," without surrendering to any illusions.
Ina Hartwig on Süddeutsche Zeitung [Bricks and Mortar is a] stylistic tour de force about the sex trade in Germany from just before the demise of the old GDR to the present, as told through a chorus of voices and lucidly mangled musings. The result is a gripping narrative best described as organic.
Eileen Battersby on Irish Times The reviewer was particularly impressed not only by this surfeit of reality, in which he occasionally hears authentic experience, but also by the tenderness with which Meyer allows the prostitutes to speak. Here, the narrator with the otherwise powerful voice moves as if on tiptoe.
Jürgen Verdofsky on Frankfurter Rundschau
1 / 3
Why people recommend it
No reasons shared yet. Tell others what makes this title worth their time.