An audio book.
Ralf is a geography lecturer, a parent. He grew up in cold war West Berlin. His mother was English, a psychologist working from home. His friends were Stefan, Petra and Maike (his girlfriend). His brother Martin is 4 years his junior. Ralph likes girls and (secretly) boys. He fancies their neighbour Tobias. He thinks Tobias is having sex with his mother. When Ralf's about to go to university he's befriended by Oz, 22, whose Turkish father is their landlord and runs a bookshop. Oz is an informant for the West. He's interested in Tobias (who he claimes is a spy for the East). Oz thinks that Tobias might be looking through Ralf's mother's files about her patients with sex problems (some from the British Army) so they can be blackmailed.
Ralf stays a night or so with Oz. Ralf's besotted. He passes for university but says he's going to take a gap year. Maike breaks up with him. He steals some of his mother's files for Oz. Oz begins to panic, thinking the Stasi are onto him/them - photos of the two of them together are left in his flat.
Oz and Ralf are attacked by Oz's brother and father. Ralf goes to Petra and tells her about Oz. When he gets home, Oz's brother and father are there. They say that Oz is psychotic and doesn't always take his drugs. When Ralf tells them about the espionage, his father says it's not the first time. Oz is taken to a clinic. A woman phones Ralf, saying she's engaged to Oz.
Oz disappears. Ralf realises he's taken a year off for nothing. He gets a shoebox of souvenirs from Oz's father, studies them for clues. It's 1989. His friends leave for university. Something in the shoebox makes Ralf wonder if his father is a Stasi spy. He challenges his father. Maike's mother dies. At the wake his mother appears and reveals that his father made her into a Stasi informant (they were in love, she was a socialist). They'd known what had been going on all the time. His father had had the photos taken. At that moment the wall falls. He goes to see what's going on. Oz is there. When he returns to his family they're about to leave for East Germany. They all go in the car until stopped by the police - Martin had phoned them. His parents are arrested. His father dies at 50.
Years later, Maike, Petra and Stefan attend his wedding.
I liked most of it - pacing was ok, and the facts about Berlin life were interesting. Sex/spy secrecy merges. Ralf was too head-over-heels in love with Oz for my liking.
No comments:
Post a Comment