{"product_id":"9781911420750","title":"The Room","description":"\u003cp\u003eKnausgaard meets East Germany in a brilliantly ironic memoir-cum-novel\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUncle J was a forceps delivery, which explains why he is not really all there. Still a child in many ways, he has grown older all the same. Now he is madly in love, with a Volkswagen Type 3 Variant.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHe is a man with no sense of history and little attachment to the real world, other than an armchair enthusiasm for mountain climbing, a passion for Wehrmacht tanks, and a keen interest in Frankfurt’s prostitutes. Uncle J is a person to whom the concept of guilt just does not apply. He doesn’t grasp at life’s chances, because he can’t. Meanwhile, the world around him seems mysteriously and unerringly busy. But to what end?\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Room\u003c\/i\u003e is a dazzling fictional meditation on Andreas Maier’s family, the cruel absurdities of small-town life, and the euphoria that surrounded ‘progress’ in the 1960s. It is also a stirring exploration of Germany in the post-war years, a reflection on time and civilisation, and on human dignity and how it can be preserved.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAndreas Maier\u003c\/b\u003e was born near Frankfurt in 1967. In addition to winning the Ernst Willner Prize at the Ingeborg Bachmann Literary Competition in 2000, he received the Jürgen Ponto Foundation’s Literary Support Prize and the Aspekte Literary Prize for his first novel Wäldchestag.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘As diabolical and sublime as one can imagine a writer to be’ \u003ci\u003eJournal Frankfurt\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘Anyone interested in literature … knows that Andreas Maier is one of the most remarkable German language authors’ \u003ci\u003eWiener Zeitung\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘A masterpiece of keen observation and the small miracle’ \u003ci\u003eFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Darkwater Syndicate, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47180213321968,"sku":"9781911420750","price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781911420750_p0.jpg?v=1763631035","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781911420750","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}