Summerhouse, Later: Stories [Hardcover]

Judith Hermann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 2002

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. An international bestseller and translated into twelve languages, Summerhouse, Later heralds the arrival of one of Germanys most arresting new literary talents.

A restless man hopes to find permanence in the purchase of a summerhouse 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, possibly Europe's most vibrant and exhilarating city, Hermann's characters are as kaleidoscopic and extraordinary as their metropolis, united mostly in a furious and dogged pursuit of the elusive specter of "living in the moment." They're people who, in one way or another, constantly challenge the madness of the modern world and whose dreams of transcending the ordinary for that "narrow strip of sky over the rooftops" are deeply felt and perfectly rendered.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stalled communication and the vagaries of memory are the familiar themes woven through the nine spare stories in Hermann's debut collection. Her characters, mostly youngish to middle-aged Berliners, stubbornly insist on living in the past even if it's someone else's past. In "The Red Coral Bracelet," a young woman, trying to sort out her own relationship with an uncommunicative boyfriend, describes to her therapist her great-grandmother's life in St. Petersburg, where the great-grandmother's lover shot her husband through the heart in a duel. An artist in "Sonja" finds that his unusual relationship with a reticent, mousy chain smoker whom he claims not to desire is far more resonant than his love affair with a bombshell. The narrator of "Bali Woman" addresses an absent-lover while out on a restless all-night odyssey among Berlin's art world denizens, and in "Hunter Johnson Music" (one of the two stories in the collection not set primarily in Germany), an isolated man living in a dilapidated New York City hotel gives an unusual parting gift to a neighbor woman who's stood him up for a date. Hermann's characters are restless, their desires oblique and unfocused, their memories more real than their raucous real-life encounters. Yet in spite of some sharp observations of contemporary German manners and mores, and her generally elegant prose, Hermann's stories often don't transcend the melancholy self-absorption of her characters.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Hermann’s writing is spare and literal and achieves a fullness that’s almost magically spun… Arresting.” (New York Times Book Review )

“Judith Hermann’s intriguing debut collection ... offers nine glimpses of post-wall Berlin that shimmer with dark wit and intelligence.” (Elle Magazine )

“Sometimes heartbreaking and always starkly original. Every story here is worth reading. Exceptional.” (Sunday Business Post, Dublin )

“An exceptional debut that gives rise to great hope.” (Die Zeit )

“A master storyteller.” (The Independent )

“Judith Hermann’s prose has conviction and is utterly of its time.” (Focus )

“Powerful… both whimsical and melancholic, at once edgy and moving -- the stuff of meaningful literature.” (Denver Post )

“Daringly lyrical.” (O magazine )

“A work of vision, authority and humaneness -- something to be savored.” (Times Literary Supplement (London) )

“One of the great revelations of contemporary Germany literature.” (Le Monde )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; 1st edition (April 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060006862
• ISBN-13: 978-0060006860
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,501,001 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent , descriptive and yet remote, January 3, 2005

By 

Hugh Claffey (Co. Kildare Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Summerhouse, Later: Stories (Paperback)

This book is set of short stories translated from German. I am not sure whether it is the authors gift or this gift in combination with the translation which give these stories their sense of remoteness and in some cases alienation. In most fiction, the author strives to involve the reader as closely as possible with the character and the narrative, however in these stories, the reader is held at a remove, the characters seem to carry on almost in suspended animation and at times the stories do not work towards an understandable conclusion. However for all that, they are magnificent, memorable and thought provoking. I won't say more, read them

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Is that the story I want to tell? I'm not sure. Not really sure...", July 15, 2011

By 

Friederike Knabe (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Summerhouse, Later: Stories (Paperback)

A nameless young woman recalls her great-grandmother in Russia, reminded of her by the treasured possession, an antique red coral bracelet that had triggered an abrupt change in both their lives. A cab driver, called Stein (stone), dreams of an old stone summer house along a lake outside the big city, yet may be in greater need for a friend to realize the dream. These two stories form the bookends of Judith Hermann's debut collection, "Summerhouse, later" (2001, in German 1998). Nine stories depict scenes in the lives of, primarily, thirty-something individuals, who, alone or in small groups, represent a Berlin generation in limbo - hovering between past and future. For them, the fall of the Berlin Wall and all that came before is long past, yet their expectations for the future remain uncertain or vague at best, for some it is beyond any need for reflection even.

While each story is distinct in its theme and characters, together they make up more than the sum of the parts. There is an overarching sense of Berlin reality, a sense of loss, covered up by attitudes of laissez-faire and disinterest in others and even oneself. In some aspect reminiscent of the 1968 generation, yet without any political or social ambitions, intensely argued at the time, Hermann's characters seem to be drifting through life: jobs are casual, careers not apparent or of interest. The individuals avoid forming serious attachments; sex is casual or not at all of interest; love, if it happens is fragile or fleeting. Conversations are aloof - the sense of loneliness permeates much of the stories. Written in a quiet, detached, and precise language, these first impressions of a disaffected youth, however, are only created at the surface level. Underneath, we immediately sense the characters' uneasiness and helplessness, their deep-seated sense of loss, the need for nostalgic reminiscences of a better past and, yes, glimmers of hope. Hermann's understanding and sensitive depiction of her characters' minds and their circumstances speaks directly to the reader. We feel strangely affected and moved by her protagonists; they and their stories will linger in your mind for a long time.

Hermann's narrators live somewhat outside the established society, most are uncertain about their role in the present (post-wall) society. The setting is not always Berlin, yet, like the author herself, the characters carry Berlin in their blood wherever they go. Landscapes and seasons are closely connected; both often mirror the inner sentiments of the stories' characters. It is usually winter in Berlin - with the suffering of cold in the old poorly heated apartments being offset by the enjoyment of walks in the snow. Summer is evoked in the countryside around Berlin, at the lake or the river Oder. A group of friends is invited to a Caribbean island; naively, they want to experience a hurricane... Or Marie, who is reflecting on her new artist friend: "Happiness is always the moment before, The second before the moment in which I actually should be happy. In that second I am happy and don't know it". I liked all nine stories, even if for varying reasons.

Judith Hermann appeared on the German literary scene in 1998 with this first of her (now three) story collections and, since then, has garnered several prestigious literary awards. In Germany she has been grouped together with other young women authors, all born around 1970, and all from Berlin (East or West), such as Jenny Erpenbeck (Visitation) or Julia Franck (The Blindness of the Heart: A Novel). [Friederike Knabe]

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars :), December 20, 2007

By 

Tere (Texas, Tx USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Summerhouse, Later: Stories (Paperback)

It's true that there seem to be no conclusion in the stories. However, the stories are original, and the depictions of the environments are beautiful. The stories are dream-like.