The hustler : the story of a nameless love from Friedrichstrasse

In this novel, first published in 1926, fifteen-year-old Gunther runs away from his village to the big city of Berlin, where he falls into the life of a street hustler. There Hermann Graff, a sensitive and naïve young man, falls hopelessly in love with him. Christopher Isherwood said of this novel in 1983: “I have always loved this book dearly—despite and even because of its occasional sentimental absurdities. And it does give you a picture of the Berlin sexual underworld early in this century which I know, from my own experience, to be authentic.” This is a pederastic novel of the Berlin boy-bars. Puppenjunge translates literally as "The Boy-Doll", but published in English as The Hustler, as 'Puppenjunge' was Berlin slang for 'male prostitute'. In a note to the American publisher of this book, Christopher Isherwood said, "It gives a picture of the Berlin sexual underworld early in this century which I know, from my own experience, to be authentic." A novel about the homosexual sub-culture in inter-war Berlin. A nice middle-class Berliner, age 19, falls in love with a 14 year old street hustler.