Summerhouse, Later: Stories

In nine luminous stories of love and loss, loneliness and hope, Judith Hermann's stunning debut collection paints a vivid and poignant picture of a generation ready and anxious to turn their back on the past, to risk uncertainty in search of a fresh, if fragile, equilibrium. A restless man hopes to find permanence in the purchase of a summer house outside Berlin. A young girl, trapped in a paralyzing web of family stories and secrets, finally manages to break free. A granddaughter struggles to lay her grandmother's ghosts to rest. A successful and simplistic artist becomes inexplicably obsessed with an elusive and strangely sinister young girl. Against the backdrop of contemporary Berlin, one of Europe's most vibrant and exhilarating cities, Hermann's characters are as kaleidoscopic and extraordinary as their metropolis, united mostly in a furious and dogged pursuit of that "narrow strip of sky over the rooftops." An international bestseller and translated into twelve languages, Summerhouse, Later heralds the arrival of one of Germany's most arresting new literary talents.