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1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

From the young, internationally acclaimed author of Measuring the World comes a stunning tragicomic novel about three brothers, their relationship to their distant father, and their individual fates and struggles in the modern world

One day Arthur Friedland piles his three sons into the car and drives them to see the Great Lindemann, Master of Hypnosis. Protesting that he doesn't believe in magic even as he is led onto the stage, Arthur nevertheless experiences something. Later that night, while his family sleeps, he takes his passport, empties all the money from his bank account, and vanishes. In time, still absent from his family, he beings to publish novels and becomes an internationally renowned author. His sons grow into men who manifest their inexplicable loss—Martin becomes a priest who does not believe in God; Ivan, a painter in constant artistic crisis; Eric, a businessman given to hallucinations and a fear of ghosts—even as they struggle to understand their father's disappearance and make their own places in the world.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 16, 2014
      Three brothers struggle to find their place in the world in this novel from German author Kehlmann (Fame). Middling writer Arthur Friedland spends his days penning novels no publisher would print and his off-hours devising ways to entertain his three sons: identical twins Ivan and Eric, and an older son, Martin, from a previous marriage. One afternoon, the foursome go to see “The Great Lindemann,” a hypnotist whose words of advice prompt Arthur to go home, empty his bank account, and vanish, emerging years later as a successful, if eccentric, author. Meanwhile, Martin, Ivan, and Eric spend the next few decades dealing with their feelings of abandonment. Martin has become a shiftless priest who doesn’t believe in God; painter Ivan feels disillusioned with the very concept of art; and money manager Eric is losing both his mind and his Ponzi scheme of a business. Together, the hapless trio face their existential crises. Kehlmann sometimes presents the same scene from different brothers’ perspectives, thereby illuminating their skewed experiences of the world. The novel that emerges is both bizarre and bleakly humorous, a slim manifesto on the divide between people’s dreams and their destinies.

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  • English

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