Desperate Characters

Titel; Zum Buch; Über die Autorin; Über die Übersetzerin; 1. Kapitel; 2. Kapitel; 3. Kapitel; 4. Kapitel; 5. Kapitel; 6. Kapitel; 7. Kapitel; 8. Kapitel; 9. Kapitel; 10. Kapitel; 11. Kapitel; 12. Kapitel; 13. Kapitel; Nachwort: Anleitung zum Alleinsein; Wozu der Aufwand?; Impressum A Great American Novel – from the author of 'Borrowed Finery'. Otto and Sophie Bentwood live childless in a renovated Brooklyn brownstone. The complete works of Goethe line their bookshelf, their stainless steel kitchen is newly installed, and their Mercedes is parked outside. After Sophie is bitten on the hand while trying to feed a half-starved neighbourhood cat, a series of small and ominous disasters begin to plague their lives, revealing the faultlines and fractures in a marriage – and a society – wrenching itself apart. Includes an introduction by Jonathan Franzen. First published in 1970 to great acclaim, this novel stands as one of the most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in postwar American literature--a novel that, according to Irving Howe, ranks with "Billy Budd" and "The Great Gatsby".