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The Recent East
Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Beate Haas, who defected from East Germany as a child, is notified that her parents' abandoned mansion is available for her to reclaim. Newly divorced and eager to escape her bleak life in upstate New York, where she moved as an adult, she arrives with her two teenagers to discover a city that has become an unrecognizable ghost town. The move fractures the siblings' close relationship, as Michael, free to be gay, takes to looting empty houses and partying with wannabe anarchists, while Adela, fascinated with the horrors of the Holocaust, buries herself in books and finds companionship in a previously unknown cousin. Over time, the town itself changes--from dismantled city to refugee haven and neo-Nazi hotbed, and eventually to a desirable seaside resort town. In the midst of that change, two episodes of devastating, fateful violence come to define the family forever.
Moving seamlessly through decades and between the thoughts and lives of several unforgettable characters, Thomas Grattan's spellbinding novel is a multigenerational epic that illuminates what it means to leave home, and what it means to return. Masterfully crafted with humor, gorgeous prose, and a powerful understanding of history and heritage, The Recent East is the profoundly affecting story of a family upended by displacement and loss, and the extraordinary debut of an empathetic and ambitious storyteller.
Moving seamlessly through decades and between the thoughts and lives of several unforgettable characters, Thomas Grattan's spellbinding novel is a multigenerational epic that illuminates what it means to leave home, and what it means to return. Masterfully crafted with humor, gorgeous prose, and a powerful understanding of history and heritage, The Recent East is the profoundly affecting story of a family upended by displacement and loss, and the extraordinary debut of an empathetic and ambitious storyteller.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published March 9, 2021
149 people are currently reading
9063 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Grattan
3 books142 followersNot to be confused with Thomas Colley Grattan
Thomas Grattan's short fiction has appeared in several publications, including One Story, Slice, and The Colorado Review, has been shortlisted for a Pushcart Prize, and was listed as a notable stories in Best American Short Stories. He has an MFA in Fiction Writing from Brooklyn College and has taught middle school English for more than a decade. He lives in New York City.
Thomas Grattan's short fiction has appeared in several publications, including One Story, Slice, and The Colorado Review, has been shortlisted for a Pushcart Prize, and was listed as a notable stories in Best American Short Stories. He has an MFA in Fiction Writing from Brooklyn College and has taught middle school English for more than a decade. He lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 192 reviews
May 6, 2021
This fascinating novel practically begs for a second read. Both the prose and the social observations made throughout are complex. The novel is both challenging and rewarding. It exhilarated me with its perspectives and characters and observations, and then in the next chapter asked me to catch up with a new perspective, a different generation, and a different set of circumstances for the characters, just when I wanted to stay comfortably in the perspective of the world Grattan had created for me in the previous chapter.
The novel weaves three story lines--that of Beate, who at the beginning of the novel defects from East Germany with her parents at the age of 12, Beate's children, raised in the US and then brought back to East Germany by their mother after the fall of the Berlin Wall and after her marriage has collapsed; and Peter, her grandchild. The writing is uniformly excellent and the scenes are full of surprise and rich with human feeling. Each of these generations and their tribulations and triumphs casts light on the others, and allows this relatively brief novel to span an incredible, complex era in history. I'm a little undone just now by the structure and the choices Grattan made to leap in a non-chronological way through his story, but now that I've come to the end I can see the purpose of his choices, and that's why I want to read it again soon.
The novel weaves three story lines--that of Beate, who at the beginning of the novel defects from East Germany with her parents at the age of 12, Beate's children, raised in the US and then brought back to East Germany by their mother after the fall of the Berlin Wall and after her marriage has collapsed; and Peter, her grandchild. The writing is uniformly excellent and the scenes are full of surprise and rich with human feeling. Each of these generations and their tribulations and triumphs casts light on the others, and allows this relatively brief novel to span an incredible, complex era in history. I'm a little undone just now by the structure and the choices Grattan made to leap in a non-chronological way through his story, but now that I've come to the end I can see the purpose of his choices, and that's why I want to read it again soon.
February 12, 2021
1965, East Germany. "Arrest was everywhere in Kritzhagen, like traffic or rain...Declarations [were Vati's] favorite form of talking-Mutti too afraid to challenge him...Perhaps [Mutti] tried and failed to find a way to stay...certain they'd never make it across the border". "West was not home, but a mystery...It hit Beate [12 years old] then that this was dangerous...soldiers examined and reexamined their passports at the border crossing outside Lubeck...".
1990, Glens Falls, New York. Beate's marriage had crumbled. After years of "sulky pronouncements", husband Paul was gone. "Dad's muscular annoyance was reserved for Michael...[Michael, thirteen years old] was afraid of the wrong things. A perceived slight left him uneasy for days, though he treated near-injury as a joke...there was worry he tried to cover...". Adela, twelve, was Michael's protector. "[Dad] was a presence, a few emotions she either appreciated or avoided...how little [Adela] actually knew him". Two miracles occurred: Dad's departure and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Beate received a registered letter stating that she could reclaim her ancestral home.
To stay or to go? Beate waivered. "Without Dad to contend with, the three of them switched exclusively to German. Beate filled the walls with lists of words the teenagers didn't know. Adela wanted to believe that Germany would be different for them...a house with dozens of rooms, the chance to swim in the sea." "With the fall of the wall, people who'd been kept in for decades began to leave...it was the city's emptiness that Michael now loved...looting had begun...Michael found a flat, rolling dolly...chairs...mixing bowls...a desk for Adela...He piled up the dolly with furniture, learned how to pack it so that it was aerodynamic and balanced". Their Kritzhagen house, upon their arrival, had no furniture and no electricity.
"What Beate thought would be a glorious return felt like squatting...She was in a city where she recognized nothing, without a job or a single friend...she grew hopeful that if she kept walking, looking...she would get to a place and remember something she'd felt there-confusion, or a joy...".
Adela self isolated, leading a hermetic existence. She read Holocaust books "...imagining the ache of hunger and cold and fear felt by Elie Wiesel...Elie marching barefoot through a blizzard". Michael experienced a sexual awakening in Germany. He realized he didn't want Adela to be his protector, his shelter from the storm. He embraced his sexual identity and new found freedom to party, loot and drink. For Michael, drinking and drugs suddenly became normal, "whole pieces of memory leaving him....including any kindness from his sister...the kindness they used to pass back and forth".
"The Recent East" by Thomas Grattan is a novel that encapsulates the time period from the 1960s to 2000. Vati and Mutti, two academics, with daughter Beate in tow, defected from East Germany. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Beate moved back to her home in Kritzhagen with her children. Author Grattan's description of a city, abandoned and looted, rings true. The city would swarm with refugees in tents and neo-nazis, but eventually the seaside city would be restored. The parallel story of a multigenerational family returning to Kritzhagen did not captivate me. Although the protagonists wanted to start anew, their abandonment of each other in pursuing their life choices fell flat for this reader. Concern for their plight made me soldier on, despite my disappointment.
Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux/MCD for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
1990, Glens Falls, New York. Beate's marriage had crumbled. After years of "sulky pronouncements", husband Paul was gone. "Dad's muscular annoyance was reserved for Michael...[Michael, thirteen years old] was afraid of the wrong things. A perceived slight left him uneasy for days, though he treated near-injury as a joke...there was worry he tried to cover...". Adela, twelve, was Michael's protector. "[Dad] was a presence, a few emotions she either appreciated or avoided...how little [Adela] actually knew him". Two miracles occurred: Dad's departure and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Beate received a registered letter stating that she could reclaim her ancestral home.
To stay or to go? Beate waivered. "Without Dad to contend with, the three of them switched exclusively to German. Beate filled the walls with lists of words the teenagers didn't know. Adela wanted to believe that Germany would be different for them...a house with dozens of rooms, the chance to swim in the sea." "With the fall of the wall, people who'd been kept in for decades began to leave...it was the city's emptiness that Michael now loved...looting had begun...Michael found a flat, rolling dolly...chairs...mixing bowls...a desk for Adela...He piled up the dolly with furniture, learned how to pack it so that it was aerodynamic and balanced". Their Kritzhagen house, upon their arrival, had no furniture and no electricity.
"What Beate thought would be a glorious return felt like squatting...She was in a city where she recognized nothing, without a job or a single friend...she grew hopeful that if she kept walking, looking...she would get to a place and remember something she'd felt there-confusion, or a joy...".
Adela self isolated, leading a hermetic existence. She read Holocaust books "...imagining the ache of hunger and cold and fear felt by Elie Wiesel...Elie marching barefoot through a blizzard". Michael experienced a sexual awakening in Germany. He realized he didn't want Adela to be his protector, his shelter from the storm. He embraced his sexual identity and new found freedom to party, loot and drink. For Michael, drinking and drugs suddenly became normal, "whole pieces of memory leaving him....including any kindness from his sister...the kindness they used to pass back and forth".
"The Recent East" by Thomas Grattan is a novel that encapsulates the time period from the 1960s to 2000. Vati and Mutti, two academics, with daughter Beate in tow, defected from East Germany. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Beate moved back to her home in Kritzhagen with her children. Author Grattan's description of a city, abandoned and looted, rings true. The city would swarm with refugees in tents and neo-nazis, but eventually the seaside city would be restored. The parallel story of a multigenerational family returning to Kritzhagen did not captivate me. Although the protagonists wanted to start anew, their abandonment of each other in pursuing their life choices fell flat for this reader. Concern for their plight made me soldier on, despite my disappointment.
Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux/MCD for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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July 28, 2021Let's face it, I'm probably not going to go back to this after reading the Booker longlist; it's pretty outrageous that this family story with East German history as a backdrop is widely covered, while novels by people who have been there aren't even translated: The motif of young kids roaming East German ruins is taken directly from Als wir träumten (an acclaimed, widely read text in Germany), a coming-of-age novel set during the end of the GDR, written by Clemens Meyer, a highly talented guy who actually lived through it as a teenager. I see the appeal of using East German history as a means to work with the many metaphors that come to mind in this context, but I can't say that I appreciate the cliched approach and the lack of nuance. The character development is pretty good, but hey, you should read Clemens Meyer instead, he's famous for his great evocation of places and people that tend to be overlooked. East German literature from after 1990 is more than underrepresented when it comes to translations from the German, and it's a shame.
April 24, 2021
4.5 stars, and one of the most emotionally satisfying reading experiences I've had in the past year. Now I feel terribly guilty about letting this one languish in the depths of my Kindle for six months, and it was only reviews by Lark and Jennifer (and Thomas Mallon in The New Yorker) that inspired me to start reading. If you've enjoyed Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain or Philip Hensher's work, you'll enjoy this finely-observed gay coming-of-age novel.
This is a small, intimate family story with a fractured and dispersed time-frame, but the non-consecutive chapters, which jump from the points of view of four major characters across fifty years, illuminate parallels in personality, character, and relationships between spouses, between siblings, as well as between parents and children. Grattan writes with great empathy and insight about these migrants' personal experiences of relocation and dislocation between Germany and America.
But intriguingly, this is mostly a story of reverse migration: an East German-born woman returning to the former DDR with her American-born adolescent children, to build a new life there in the early 1990s, right after the awkward experience of East-West reunification. Ironically, Beate and her son Michael become more fully themselves-- and more fully at home-- after leaving upstate New York for the fictional Baltic coastal town of Kritzhagen,
First, the backstory: in 1968, Beate is a 12-year-old schoolgirl whose parents escape to the West on a train with forged passports. Her sanctimonious philosophy professor father becomes disillusioned in Cologne, and the family ends up in a permanently awkward state of exile in a Minnesota college town, never adapting to a life lived in English. Beate longs for an escape from her suffocating and miserable family, and as a college student meets Paul, the sister of a friend, and the two of them enter a passionate and destructive relationship that snowballs into a failed marriage with two children.
The main action begins: In 1990, after Paul abandons the family, Beate impulsively moves back to Kritzhagen, where ownership of her family's house has been restored to her. Sinking into a deep depression, she all but abandons her adolescent children Adela and Michael, who are close enough in age and psychologically co-dependent enough to be twins, to raise themselves, with a little help from their local cousin Udo. The trans-Atlantic move becomes a path of liberation for Michael, who fully embraces his sexuality in a way that was impossible in the more homophobic States, and a rabbit hole for the bookish Adela, who becomes obsessed with Nazi-era history.
We follow these three family members, and Adela's son Peter, over the next 25 years, with a tight focus on life events in the family house. While this is not a plot-driven story (there are a few longueurs and poorly-paced episodes), Grattan writes wonderfully detailed, nuanced, and genuine characters who are deeply messed-up but still longing for connection. Michael and Adela are fluent in German, so they aren't perceived as foreign, unlike the Balkan refugees who settle in an informal camp in an abandoned lot. And Kritzhagen itself becomes another character, as it develops from an Ossi backwater into a prosperous beach resort.
Grattan obliquely addresses the underlying post-Communist history but keeps his focus on the characters: Beate unknowingly hangs out in a bar with former Stasi agents, neo-Nazis violently raid the migrant camp, Michael opens an Ostalgie-themed bar called Secret Police. Perhaps the only real flaw is the characterization of their cousin Udo, a kind and saintly puppy-dog who inexplicably plunges into an act of violence that pulls Michael and Adela apart for many years.
I won't spoil the rest for you, but this was such a pleasant surprise.
Many thanks to MCD and Netgalley for giving me an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.
This is a small, intimate family story with a fractured and dispersed time-frame, but the non-consecutive chapters, which jump from the points of view of four major characters across fifty years, illuminate parallels in personality, character, and relationships between spouses, between siblings, as well as between parents and children. Grattan writes with great empathy and insight about these migrants' personal experiences of relocation and dislocation between Germany and America.
But intriguingly, this is mostly a story of reverse migration: an East German-born woman returning to the former DDR with her American-born adolescent children, to build a new life there in the early 1990s, right after the awkward experience of East-West reunification. Ironically, Beate and her son Michael become more fully themselves-- and more fully at home-- after leaving upstate New York for the fictional Baltic coastal town of Kritzhagen,
First, the backstory: in 1968, Beate is a 12-year-old schoolgirl whose parents escape to the West on a train with forged passports. Her sanctimonious philosophy professor father becomes disillusioned in Cologne, and the family ends up in a permanently awkward state of exile in a Minnesota college town, never adapting to a life lived in English. Beate longs for an escape from her suffocating and miserable family, and as a college student meets Paul, the sister of a friend, and the two of them enter a passionate and destructive relationship that snowballs into a failed marriage with two children.
The main action begins: In 1990, after Paul abandons the family, Beate impulsively moves back to Kritzhagen, where ownership of her family's house has been restored to her. Sinking into a deep depression, she all but abandons her adolescent children Adela and Michael, who are close enough in age and psychologically co-dependent enough to be twins, to raise themselves, with a little help from their local cousin Udo. The trans-Atlantic move becomes a path of liberation for Michael, who fully embraces his sexuality in a way that was impossible in the more homophobic States, and a rabbit hole for the bookish Adela, who becomes obsessed with Nazi-era history.
We follow these three family members, and Adela's son Peter, over the next 25 years, with a tight focus on life events in the family house. While this is not a plot-driven story (there are a few longueurs and poorly-paced episodes), Grattan writes wonderfully detailed, nuanced, and genuine characters who are deeply messed-up but still longing for connection. Michael and Adela are fluent in German, so they aren't perceived as foreign, unlike the Balkan refugees who settle in an informal camp in an abandoned lot. And Kritzhagen itself becomes another character, as it develops from an Ossi backwater into a prosperous beach resort.
Grattan obliquely addresses the underlying post-Communist history but keeps his focus on the characters: Beate unknowingly hangs out in a bar with former Stasi agents, neo-Nazis violently raid the migrant camp, Michael opens an Ostalgie-themed bar called Secret Police. Perhaps the only real flaw is the characterization of their cousin Udo, a kind and saintly puppy-dog who inexplicably plunges into an act of violence that pulls Michael and Adela apart for many years.
I won't spoil the rest for you, but this was such a pleasant surprise.
Many thanks to MCD and Netgalley for giving me an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.
unable-to-finish
February 7, 2021DNF at p. 138. I tried - but reading this is a chore.
January 28, 2021
Thomas Grattan's "The Recent East" tells the intergenerational story of a family that finds a home in a world populated with sadness but also with joy, and who find their lives inextricably intertwined.
Beate was a young girl when her family defected from East Germany in hopes of a better life. Moving to the USA where she discovered a man she'd marry and who would father her children, years later Beate finds herself back among the sadness that populated her childhood home in Germany. With the dividing wall down, her preteen daughter, Adela, and son, Michael, find their own lives tense and fraught as they try to find meaning in a new world in the now unified Germany. As they grow older and Michael embraces his sexuality, the family finds itself silent for years. Upon the death of a cousin, Adela and Michael find themselves together again, Adela now with a child, Peter, as they try to patch up a life that has been torn apart by the mix of sadness and joy that populates the Recent East.
Grattan's first novel is truly an incredible work of fiction: his characters are complex, the plot is multifaceted and interesting, and the story itself will help you reflect and learn to find joy in sadness. Don't sleep on this book - it will be atop the 2021 must read lists.
Beate was a young girl when her family defected from East Germany in hopes of a better life. Moving to the USA where she discovered a man she'd marry and who would father her children, years later Beate finds herself back among the sadness that populated her childhood home in Germany. With the dividing wall down, her preteen daughter, Adela, and son, Michael, find their own lives tense and fraught as they try to find meaning in a new world in the now unified Germany. As they grow older and Michael embraces his sexuality, the family finds itself silent for years. Upon the death of a cousin, Adela and Michael find themselves together again, Adela now with a child, Peter, as they try to patch up a life that has been torn apart by the mix of sadness and joy that populates the Recent East.
Grattan's first novel is truly an incredible work of fiction: his characters are complex, the plot is multifaceted and interesting, and the story itself will help you reflect and learn to find joy in sadness. Don't sleep on this book - it will be atop the 2021 must read lists.
April 27, 2021
The Recent East introduces novelist Thomas Grattan, and it’s an impressive debut. It follows a family of German-Americans from 1965, when the eldest emigrates from East Germany with her parents, to the present. I initially decide to read it because of the setting; it’s the first fiction I’ve read set in the former Soviet satellite country. However, it is the characters that keep me engaged to the last page.
My thanks go to Net Galley and McMillan for the review copy; this book is for sale now.
The story opens in 1965 as Beate and her parents are defecting:
"Everyone talked about the West as if it were a secret. They leaned in to share stories of its grocery stores that carried fresh oranges, its cars with bult-in radios. Covered their mouths to mention a Dusseldorf boulevard that catered to movie stars and dictators, whole Eastern month’s salaries spent on face cream. There were entire, whispered conversations about its large houses and overstuffed stores, its borders crossed with a smile and a flick of one’s passport. Some talked about it as if it were the most boring thing. Others like it was an uppity friend. But everyone talked about it…"
The first chapter makes me laugh out loud. Teenage Beate is mocked when she enrolls in school in Cologne, because her clothing is nowhere near as nice as what the kids in West Germany wear. Since her parents cannot afford to upgrade her wardrobe just yet, Beate comes up with the genius idea to alter the clothes she owns to make them look as Soviet as possible, and she “put on her Moscow face, worked on her Leningrad walk.” Sure enough, the kids at school are terrified of her now. She still doesn’t have friends, but she isn’t bullied anymore.
Morph forward in time. Beate is a mother now, living in upstate New York with her two adolescent children and unhappy husband. When the Berlin Wall falls, so does her marriage. Soon afterward, she is notified that her late parents’ house now belongs to her. She packs up her belongings and her children, then buys tickets to Germany.
Adela and Michael have always been close, but the move shakes their relationship. Their usual routines are shattered, and their mother, reeling from the divorce, becomes withdrawn and uncommunicative. What a terrible time to disengage from parenting! Both Michael and Adela roam the city of Kritzhagen at will, at all hours of the night. Michael is just 13 years old and gay; sometimes he doesn’t come home at all at night. I read these passages, written without obvious judgment or commentary, with horror. A new house, new city, new country, new continent, and it’s now that their mother forgets to set boundaries? I want to find this woman and slap her upside the head (though I guess that’s a different sort of boundary violation.) Half the houses in town stand empty, and since they have no furniture of their own and their mother is doing nothing to acquire it, Michael breaks into houses and steals furnishings.
My jaw drops.
Adela goes in the other direction, becoming a conscientious student and social justice advocate. But their mother pays her no attention, either.
For the first half of this story, it seems like a four star novel to me; well written, competent, but nothing to merit great accolades. This changes in the second half, because all three of these characters are dynamic, and the changes in them are absolutely believable and deeply absorbing.
I have friends that do social work, and what they have told me is this: children that are forced to become the adults in the family, taking on responsibilities they’re too young for when a parent abdicates them, often appear to miraculously mature, competent beyond their years. Everything is organized. They may do the jobs as well as any adult, and sometimes better than most. How wonderful!
But because they aren’t developmentally ready for these things yet, what happens is that later, when they are grown, they fall apart and become breathtakingly immature, because they have to go back and live their adolescent years that were stolen from them. (As a teacher, I saw this in action a couple of times.) And so I am awestruck by how consistently our Grattan’s characters follow this pattern.
As the second half progresses, I make a couple of predictions, one of which is sort of formulaic, but Grattan does other things, and they’re far better than what I’d guessed. We follow these characters for several decades, and at the end, we see the relationship that blooms between Beate and her grandson. When it’s over, I miss them.
Because Michael is gay and is one of our three protagonists, this novel is easily slotted into the LGTB genre, but it is much more than this. Instead, one should regard it as a well-written story in which one character is gay.
But whatever you choose to call this book, you should get it and read it if you love excellent fiction.
My thanks go to Net Galley and McMillan for the review copy; this book is for sale now.
The story opens in 1965 as Beate and her parents are defecting:
"Everyone talked about the West as if it were a secret. They leaned in to share stories of its grocery stores that carried fresh oranges, its cars with bult-in radios. Covered their mouths to mention a Dusseldorf boulevard that catered to movie stars and dictators, whole Eastern month’s salaries spent on face cream. There were entire, whispered conversations about its large houses and overstuffed stores, its borders crossed with a smile and a flick of one’s passport. Some talked about it as if it were the most boring thing. Others like it was an uppity friend. But everyone talked about it…"
The first chapter makes me laugh out loud. Teenage Beate is mocked when she enrolls in school in Cologne, because her clothing is nowhere near as nice as what the kids in West Germany wear. Since her parents cannot afford to upgrade her wardrobe just yet, Beate comes up with the genius idea to alter the clothes she owns to make them look as Soviet as possible, and she “put on her Moscow face, worked on her Leningrad walk.” Sure enough, the kids at school are terrified of her now. She still doesn’t have friends, but she isn’t bullied anymore.
Morph forward in time. Beate is a mother now, living in upstate New York with her two adolescent children and unhappy husband. When the Berlin Wall falls, so does her marriage. Soon afterward, she is notified that her late parents’ house now belongs to her. She packs up her belongings and her children, then buys tickets to Germany.
Adela and Michael have always been close, but the move shakes their relationship. Their usual routines are shattered, and their mother, reeling from the divorce, becomes withdrawn and uncommunicative. What a terrible time to disengage from parenting! Both Michael and Adela roam the city of Kritzhagen at will, at all hours of the night. Michael is just 13 years old and gay; sometimes he doesn’t come home at all at night. I read these passages, written without obvious judgment or commentary, with horror. A new house, new city, new country, new continent, and it’s now that their mother forgets to set boundaries? I want to find this woman and slap her upside the head (though I guess that’s a different sort of boundary violation.) Half the houses in town stand empty, and since they have no furniture of their own and their mother is doing nothing to acquire it, Michael breaks into houses and steals furnishings.
My jaw drops.
Adela goes in the other direction, becoming a conscientious student and social justice advocate. But their mother pays her no attention, either.
For the first half of this story, it seems like a four star novel to me; well written, competent, but nothing to merit great accolades. This changes in the second half, because all three of these characters are dynamic, and the changes in them are absolutely believable and deeply absorbing.
I have friends that do social work, and what they have told me is this: children that are forced to become the adults in the family, taking on responsibilities they’re too young for when a parent abdicates them, often appear to miraculously mature, competent beyond their years. Everything is organized. They may do the jobs as well as any adult, and sometimes better than most. How wonderful!
But because they aren’t developmentally ready for these things yet, what happens is that later, when they are grown, they fall apart and become breathtakingly immature, because they have to go back and live their adolescent years that were stolen from them. (As a teacher, I saw this in action a couple of times.) And so I am awestruck by how consistently our Grattan’s characters follow this pattern.
As the second half progresses, I make a couple of predictions, one of which is sort of formulaic, but Grattan does other things, and they’re far better than what I’d guessed. We follow these characters for several decades, and at the end, we see the relationship that blooms between Beate and her grandson. When it’s over, I miss them.
Because Michael is gay and is one of our three protagonists, this novel is easily slotted into the LGTB genre, but it is much more than this. Instead, one should regard it as a well-written story in which one character is gay.
But whatever you choose to call this book, you should get it and read it if you love excellent fiction.
October 28, 2021
Oh man, this book took an age to read, it’s not that I didn’t like it, I just expected so much more from this novel. In fact I was hoping it would take me to an East Germany that my parents talked about and that the setting would include places like Leipzig and Bad Doberan, hehe, wishful thinking…
My grandmother and her 2 children and my paternal grandmother and her 3 kids defected from East Germany sometime in the 1950s with only the clothes on their backs. My maternal grandmother was very clever and sewed her money into the hem of her jacket to start anew in West Germany, they never returned to East Germany again. My parents left West Germany and immigrated to Australia in 1966. I was going to say best move ever but at the moment I’m not liking Australia so much. 😭
What I liked about the book:
The character’s name Beate (cousins middle name is Beata, so it was nice to be reminded of her every time I read the name)
The mention of Freddy Quinn (one of my favourite German singers, my dad played his records almost every weekend when I was a kid, teen, adult)
Reading the name Heinz (my dad’s name)
That it was set in East Germany post war (most historical fiction I read are set in countries other than Germany or set in WWII it’s nice to see a book set in home country that focuses on something else)
Beate and her parents defecting from the East Bloc to West Germany (I found that quite interesting and a weepy moment for me.)
The alternating timelines (those always get a big thumbs up from me, I love it how they assemble various moments in history over the duration of the book)
What I didn’t like about the book
*The characters…I didn’t connect with any of them, a shame really as there were quite a few, but not one was appealing. I was waiting to say, “ooh, he/she sounds like my cousin, or those traits are similar to my mum, dad, uncle, etc,”…ha, wishful thinking, again.
*Michael’s storyline (yeah, no, that was bit too full on and explicit.)
I kept reading because I liked the writing style and it was quite well written. A reader that doesn't have any expectations, has a link or not to East Germany and, is happy with the time periods - 1968 through to 2016 will probably enjoy this book.
My grandmother and her 2 children and my paternal grandmother and her 3 kids defected from East Germany sometime in the 1950s with only the clothes on their backs. My maternal grandmother was very clever and sewed her money into the hem of her jacket to start anew in West Germany, they never returned to East Germany again. My parents left West Germany and immigrated to Australia in 1966. I was going to say best move ever but at the moment I’m not liking Australia so much. 😭
What I liked about the book:
The character’s name Beate (cousins middle name is Beata, so it was nice to be reminded of her every time I read the name)
The mention of Freddy Quinn (one of my favourite German singers, my dad played his records almost every weekend when I was a kid, teen, adult)
Reading the name Heinz (my dad’s name)
That it was set in East Germany post war (most historical fiction I read are set in countries other than Germany or set in WWII it’s nice to see a book set in home country that focuses on something else)
Beate and her parents defecting from the East Bloc to West Germany (I found that quite interesting and a weepy moment for me.)
The alternating timelines (those always get a big thumbs up from me, I love it how they assemble various moments in history over the duration of the book)
What I didn’t like about the book
*The characters…I didn’t connect with any of them, a shame really as there were quite a few, but not one was appealing. I was waiting to say, “ooh, he/she sounds like my cousin, or those traits are similar to my mum, dad, uncle, etc,”…ha, wishful thinking, again.
*Michael’s storyline (yeah, no, that was bit too full on and explicit.)
I kept reading because I liked the writing style and it was quite well written. A reader that doesn't have any expectations, has a link or not to East Germany and, is happy with the time periods - 1968 through to 2016 will probably enjoy this book.
April 14, 2021
The Recent East by Thomas Grattan follows three generations of a German-American family's ties to a small town in East Germany. Beate was born and lived most of her childhood under the German Democratic Republic. At the age of 12 she and her elderly parents defect to West Germany, before eventually settling in the USA. After her husband leaves her and their children in their small New York apartment, Beate is informed that she has inherited her family's old property in the East German town of her childhood. She packs up her pre-teen kids and her few possessions and heads off to her 'new' old life. We loosely follow the jobs, relationships, friendships and personal and moral development of Beate, her son Michael and her daughter Adela and Adela's young son Peter. The family build their lives, are drawn from and back in to this small German town.
Grattan uses the family, the small German town and its inhabitants to make larger commentary about East Germany following the collapse of the Berlin wall. He explores the legacy of communism, the rise of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment, the activities of neo-nazis and gay culture.
I listened to the audiobook and towards the end I was really struggling to finish it. I found the character and life of Michael much more interesting and engaging that the other characters. I kept listening because I wanted to know how his life went. The matriarch, Beate, lacks warmth and the family are (in my opinion) uncomfortably atomised, making this feel less like a story of family and more like a string of narratives from random individuals. I also thought that certain subjects were handled quite clumsily - I found the sub plot of Adela being a white saviour for the refugees shoe horned in and not done very well. The large gaps in the narrative as the children go from young teenagers to full grown adults made any major life changes that take place feel inconsequential.
I read the book for the character of Michael, who throws himself into the social life of his new town and explores his identity. The rest I could do without.
Grattan uses the family, the small German town and its inhabitants to make larger commentary about East Germany following the collapse of the Berlin wall. He explores the legacy of communism, the rise of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment, the activities of neo-nazis and gay culture.
I listened to the audiobook and towards the end I was really struggling to finish it. I found the character and life of Michael much more interesting and engaging that the other characters. I kept listening because I wanted to know how his life went. The matriarch, Beate, lacks warmth and the family are (in my opinion) uncomfortably atomised, making this feel less like a story of family and more like a string of narratives from random individuals. I also thought that certain subjects were handled quite clumsily - I found the sub plot of Adela being a white saviour for the refugees shoe horned in and not done very well. The large gaps in the narrative as the children go from young teenagers to full grown adults made any major life changes that take place feel inconsequential.
I read the book for the character of Michael, who throws himself into the social life of his new town and explores his identity. The rest I could do without.
May 30, 2022
The Recent East is a deep character dive set in East Germany (both pre-and-post-Wall) and in America over a span of several decades. We follow a recently divorced mother and her son and daughter as they navigate life in East Germany in a rambling house inherited from her parents.
While technically this is a debut novel, the writing here is so assured and controlled that it certainly doesn't read that way. We jump back and forth in time and we also see the narrative unfold through several characters, and it never feels jumbled or confusing. The prose is gorgeous, but rarely for its own sake; the elegant phrasing gives insights into the character we are following.
The pacing is so deliberate that it drags just a bit in spots, but overall this is an excellent novel.
While technically this is a debut novel, the writing here is so assured and controlled that it certainly doesn't read that way. We jump back and forth in time and we also see the narrative unfold through several characters, and it never feels jumbled or confusing. The prose is gorgeous, but rarely for its own sake; the elegant phrasing gives insights into the character we are following.
The pacing is so deliberate that it drags just a bit in spots, but overall this is an excellent novel.
May 14, 2021
Late in The Recent East, one character asks another, “What are you looking for?” The character answers, “I don’t know.” That is a summation of this work. Form follows content. It is the movie Memento deconstructed and trivialized. Which is hard. Perhaps no character in recent fiction is as unlikeable as Michael, a promiscuous gay man who when he is not picking up strangers is masturbating at work. And what occupation does he choose? NO! Not being owner of a gay, hip bar with posters of East Germany and cute drink names? Yes, Gratton manages to trivialize any subject he touches, even AIDS, the growing immigration problem in Germany, and the rise of right wing hate groups. Nope it’s all fodder for Graton to present a platform for his oh, so precious Michael,
One hoped for more in this story of someone from East Germany slipping into the West and returning to the new united Germany. Although it is multi-generational, the parts are so scattered it’s as if the author says, “Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you this.” And the pastiche continues. At one point the mother asks the daughter, “Why are we here?” The author never tells us. I may have given another book one star in the past. If so, I apologize. This one is worse, a louche and rebarbative waste of time. Never have I felt so complete as I deleted this from my library.
One hoped for more in this story of someone from East Germany slipping into the West and returning to the new united Germany. Although it is multi-generational, the parts are so scattered it’s as if the author says, “Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you this.” And the pastiche continues. At one point the mother asks the daughter, “Why are we here?” The author never tells us. I may have given another book one star in the past. If so, I apologize. This one is worse, a louche and rebarbative waste of time. Never have I felt so complete as I deleted this from my library.
January 4, 2021
A compulsively readable debut novel from Thomas Grattan that explores a slice of "ostalgie" (the reminiscing over aspects of life in communist East Germany). Spanning decades between the 1960s and early 2000s, the novel follows Beate Haas and her teen (and later adult) children Michael and Adela as they return to the Kritzhagen home from which Beate's family defected in the 60s.
Though Kritzhagen isn't found on a map of Germany, it's described as seaside and within a short train ride to Lübeck, so in my mind I pegged it to be Baltic, something like the coastal city of Rostock. When reading this book it helps to have a rudimentary understanding of the former division of West and East Germany and the not-so-clear-cut ways in which things came together after reunification in 1989. This in part explains whey Beate remains so world weary about 'coming home' to a place that she never really knew. This very frank, fascinating family saga details the coming of age and reckoning of Beate and her family members, making for a compelling and memorable read.
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Though Kritzhagen isn't found on a map of Germany, it's described as seaside and within a short train ride to Lübeck, so in my mind I pegged it to be Baltic, something like the coastal city of Rostock. When reading this book it helps to have a rudimentary understanding of the former division of West and East Germany and the not-so-clear-cut ways in which things came together after reunification in 1989. This in part explains whey Beate remains so world weary about 'coming home' to a place that she never really knew. This very frank, fascinating family saga details the coming of age and reckoning of Beate and her family members, making for a compelling and memorable read.
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
December 12, 2021
When Beate was a child, her parents defected from East Germany with her and, after various attempts to find a plce to settle down for good, the family eventually moved to the US. Decades later, when the Berlin Wall falls, Beate is informed that she can reclaim her family home standing vacant in the former GDR. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, she packs up her teenage children and moves them to Germany, only to discover that she barely recognizes the ghost town her former home has become while both children take to being uprooted in this manner in very different ways.
I was intrigued by the premise and found the narrative, unfocussed and meandering though it was, engaging enough at the beginning, but the further I read the less I liked the characters and the less interest I had in their lives. I didn't much care for the way certain events and issues were depicted and the character's actions and reactions within them - too often, it felt like a superficial, trivializing approach to important subjects.
I was intrigued by the premise and found the narrative, unfocussed and meandering though it was, engaging enough at the beginning, but the further I read the less I liked the characters and the less interest I had in their lives. I didn't much care for the way certain events and issues were depicted and the character's actions and reactions within them - too often, it felt like a superficial, trivializing approach to important subjects.
April 8, 2021
A wonderful family saga about a young girl whose family defects from East Germany in 1968 to America in 1971, then returns in the early 1990s with her own two children to her family's abandoned home in East Germany that is then empty of the majority of people who moved West. The story follows the family over the years until 2016. I really liked it.
February 16, 2021
via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
“𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞,” 𝐔𝐝𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐀𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐚. “𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞.”
“𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭,” 𝐀𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝, 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐬- 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐳 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐫. 𝐊𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐤. 𝐔𝐝𝐨 𝐬𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝. “𝐁𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐲,” 𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐬𝐞.
The collapse of the Berlin Wall coincides with the collapse of Beate Haas’s marriage and on the heels of these events, Beat receives a registered letter informing her that she can now claim the home in Kritzhagen she and her parents lived in before their escape many years ago. Beate has decided she and her two teenaged children should go to Germany. On a June day they discover the house with many rooms isn’t quite as their mother, whom they refer as ‘the German Lady’, remembers it. Time has taken it’s toll on the old ghost, now inhabited by mice empty of furniture and not one of the childhood friends their mother talked about there to greet them. This is the beginning of Beate curling into herself on the old mansion’s floor and avoiding the reality of this now unfamiliar country.
Adela and Michael, Beate’s teenaged children, each deal with this move differently. Adela tries on Michael’s enthusiasm, hoping the move is a turn of good fortune, wanting to believe her brother’s stories about the place. But when they land in Germany on a June morning, nothing is as they envisioned, the home not much resembling the picture their mother showed them. This will be the place the single identity they always seemed to share dissolves. Eldest Michael experiences everything from vandalism, new friendships, and partying to a sexual encounter that leaves him confronting his identity. Gay in Germany isn’t the same as gay in America. Adela buries herself in books about tragedies and the horrific history of Eastern Germany, disinterested in discovering this new country waiting outside their door beyond print. Brother and sister no longer share their lives with each other as they did before. Michael is coming into his own, separate from his family, hungry for adventure. Adela is no longer flush with certainty, that former confidence gone and buried under the ruins of their new home. Here, she seems lost in confusion. She’d rather read about their city than explore it.
One day they come home to find a large teenage boy in their yard, Udo Behm, a cousin they never knew about. Udo is the one person who can get Adela to engage with the world again beyond the walls of their home. Udo is always present after that, solving their problems (that Michael already attempted to), teaching Adela a different side of his country’s history, lightening the heaviness of Adela’s days Udo is complicated. Michael is at times a bit jealous of his place in his sister’s life being usurped by Udo but also wishes he were his own brother. Udo and Adela perceive the world in vastly different ways. It’s only a matter of time before their differences cause problems. There is violence, too, on the streets between refugees and the locals. Adela befriends a refugee girl, an act others aren’t fond of. Wannabe neo-nazis, rage, shame, and violence… Michael is too free, unaware of what’s coming and how it’s about to change his family.
Beate has returned to her native country more alien than she imagined she’d ever be. Neither American nor German any longer, it’s impossible to pretend she can navigate this new life, guide her children. There is no such thing as returning, time moves on and so do the people. She can’t recall much of her youth and is often unable place the people who remember her. She struggles to even understand why she and her much older parents left so long ago. Beate’s early years adjusting to the west shed light on the immigrant experience, how displacement effects children as much as adults. She is uprooted each time she manages to plant herself. The failure of her marriage is no different, and once again she is lost, flailing to find an anchor, failing as a mother, blind to how much Adela needs her. She is out on the streets at night almost as much as Michael, exploring the city, finding work cutting hair in a depressing bar. The reader goes back into the past with her childhood, how she met her children’s father, and her attempts at budding love in the present. Udo and his mother are a Godsend, even while irritating her in equal turns. While she is figuring herself out, violence threatens the life she envisioned back in her homeland, and changes her family for decades. The siblings aren’t finished drifting away from each other, with one child building their future in Germany, and the other fleeing.
It’s an exploration of family, cultural and sexual identity, and how we are molded by the places we plant our family. An intelligent story, if full of sorrow. I was a little disappointed by Udo’s storyline, I wanted more for he and Adela. I never felt I really got to know her as much as I wished to nor dissected their bond. The novel comes full circle, but it was focused more on Michael and Beate. The other characters sometimes come alive but Michael and Adela’s father truly feels more like a shadow than worth the reader’s time. Udo, such a damaged, lost person and yet fragile too is vital one moment and then more like an echo next. Maybe we’re meant to feel everything is out of our hands too?
Publication Date: March 9, 2021
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
“𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞,” 𝐔𝐝𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐀𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐚. “𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞.”
“𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭,” 𝐀𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝, 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐬- 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐳 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐫. 𝐊𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐤. 𝐔𝐝𝐨 𝐬𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝. “𝐁𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐲,” 𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐬𝐞.
The collapse of the Berlin Wall coincides with the collapse of Beate Haas’s marriage and on the heels of these events, Beat receives a registered letter informing her that she can now claim the home in Kritzhagen she and her parents lived in before their escape many years ago. Beate has decided she and her two teenaged children should go to Germany. On a June day they discover the house with many rooms isn’t quite as their mother, whom they refer as ‘the German Lady’, remembers it. Time has taken it’s toll on the old ghost, now inhabited by mice empty of furniture and not one of the childhood friends their mother talked about there to greet them. This is the beginning of Beate curling into herself on the old mansion’s floor and avoiding the reality of this now unfamiliar country.
Adela and Michael, Beate’s teenaged children, each deal with this move differently. Adela tries on Michael’s enthusiasm, hoping the move is a turn of good fortune, wanting to believe her brother’s stories about the place. But when they land in Germany on a June morning, nothing is as they envisioned, the home not much resembling the picture their mother showed them. This will be the place the single identity they always seemed to share dissolves. Eldest Michael experiences everything from vandalism, new friendships, and partying to a sexual encounter that leaves him confronting his identity. Gay in Germany isn’t the same as gay in America. Adela buries herself in books about tragedies and the horrific history of Eastern Germany, disinterested in discovering this new country waiting outside their door beyond print. Brother and sister no longer share their lives with each other as they did before. Michael is coming into his own, separate from his family, hungry for adventure. Adela is no longer flush with certainty, that former confidence gone and buried under the ruins of their new home. Here, she seems lost in confusion. She’d rather read about their city than explore it.
One day they come home to find a large teenage boy in their yard, Udo Behm, a cousin they never knew about. Udo is the one person who can get Adela to engage with the world again beyond the walls of their home. Udo is always present after that, solving their problems (that Michael already attempted to), teaching Adela a different side of his country’s history, lightening the heaviness of Adela’s days Udo is complicated. Michael is at times a bit jealous of his place in his sister’s life being usurped by Udo but also wishes he were his own brother. Udo and Adela perceive the world in vastly different ways. It’s only a matter of time before their differences cause problems. There is violence, too, on the streets between refugees and the locals. Adela befriends a refugee girl, an act others aren’t fond of. Wannabe neo-nazis, rage, shame, and violence… Michael is too free, unaware of what’s coming and how it’s about to change his family.
Beate has returned to her native country more alien than she imagined she’d ever be. Neither American nor German any longer, it’s impossible to pretend she can navigate this new life, guide her children. There is no such thing as returning, time moves on and so do the people. She can’t recall much of her youth and is often unable place the people who remember her. She struggles to even understand why she and her much older parents left so long ago. Beate’s early years adjusting to the west shed light on the immigrant experience, how displacement effects children as much as adults. She is uprooted each time she manages to plant herself. The failure of her marriage is no different, and once again she is lost, flailing to find an anchor, failing as a mother, blind to how much Adela needs her. She is out on the streets at night almost as much as Michael, exploring the city, finding work cutting hair in a depressing bar. The reader goes back into the past with her childhood, how she met her children’s father, and her attempts at budding love in the present. Udo and his mother are a Godsend, even while irritating her in equal turns. While she is figuring herself out, violence threatens the life she envisioned back in her homeland, and changes her family for decades. The siblings aren’t finished drifting away from each other, with one child building their future in Germany, and the other fleeing.
It’s an exploration of family, cultural and sexual identity, and how we are molded by the places we plant our family. An intelligent story, if full of sorrow. I was a little disappointed by Udo’s storyline, I wanted more for he and Adela. I never felt I really got to know her as much as I wished to nor dissected their bond. The novel comes full circle, but it was focused more on Michael and Beate. The other characters sometimes come alive but Michael and Adela’s father truly feels more like a shadow than worth the reader’s time. Udo, such a damaged, lost person and yet fragile too is vital one moment and then more like an echo next. Maybe we’re meant to feel everything is out of our hands too?
Publication Date: March 9, 2021
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
July 28, 2024
3.5! crazy to me that such a generational epic was under 400 pages
December 26, 2022
What I expected: a story about someone from East Germany, escaping, and then returning to a united country.
What I got: a dog's breakfast.
The Recent East by Thomas Grattan is a multi-generational novel that pivots around Beate Haas, who defected from East Germany as a child, and then, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, returns to Germany with her two teenagers, Michael and Adela, to reclaim her parents' abandoned mansion. The novel moves backwards and forwards in time, from Beate's childhood to her becoming a grandmother.
Where to begin...?
Firstly, I get the sense that every idea Grattan had about Germany, was chucked into this book - the immigration problem, the prejudices and inequities between the old 'east' and 'west', the rise of Neo-Nazis, and the AIDS crisis of the eighties to name a few. And on top of that, there's a similar mix of personal and relationship challenges - characters coming-of-age and dealing with their sexuality, the break-up of families, and mental health problems.
There's a lot going on in that paragraph (and not all of it makes sense).
Secondly, the blurb promised a book that '...illuminates what it means to leave home, and what it means to return' and this is the one thing that it did not deliver. I was hoping for a story about someone leaving as an East German and returning to see the country through Western eyes. Attempts to do this were tokenistic at best. There was opportunity to explore this theme through the character of Beate, however Grattan made the creative decision to have her completely dissociate from her children and daily life on her return to Germany (so not much illumination going on).
Thirdly, the prose. Again, the blurb promised 'gorgeous prose' but I would describe it more as 'purple'. I loathe detail that doesn't add to a sense of character, place or time, and this book was full of such details.
And there were some lines that were just icky -
Redeeming features? I really liked the cover!
1/5 And here I was thinking I'd made it through 2022 without a one-star read...
I received my copy of The Recent East from the publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
What I got: a dog's breakfast.
The Recent East by Thomas Grattan is a multi-generational novel that pivots around Beate Haas, who defected from East Germany as a child, and then, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, returns to Germany with her two teenagers, Michael and Adela, to reclaim her parents' abandoned mansion. The novel moves backwards and forwards in time, from Beate's childhood to her becoming a grandmother.
Where to begin...?
Firstly, I get the sense that every idea Grattan had about Germany, was chucked into this book - the immigration problem, the prejudices and inequities between the old 'east' and 'west', the rise of Neo-Nazis, and the AIDS crisis of the eighties to name a few. And on top of that, there's a similar mix of personal and relationship challenges - characters coming-of-age and dealing with their sexuality, the break-up of families, and mental health problems.
Then a rock flew. Another. Beate pulled Adela back just before one landed where they'd stood. Skinheads pushed past them, closing in on the camp. Shouts grew to a wall. A Roma ran out, was hit with a sailing stone. Blood covered a neo's forehead. One of the camp's tents waved with flames.
There's a lot going on in that paragraph (and not all of it makes sense).
Secondly, the blurb promised a book that '...illuminates what it means to leave home, and what it means to return' and this is the one thing that it did not deliver. I was hoping for a story about someone leaving as an East German and returning to see the country through Western eyes. Attempts to do this were tokenistic at best. There was opportunity to explore this theme through the character of Beate, however Grattan made the creative decision to have her completely dissociate from her children and daily life on her return to Germany (so not much illumination going on).
Thirdly, the prose. Again, the blurb promised 'gorgeous prose' but I would describe it more as 'purple'. I loathe detail that doesn't add to a sense of character, place or time, and this book was full of such details.
The last university boy had treated Tobias like a full, waiting refrigerator.
Liesl spun on the dance floor, a cloud of cleavage and lace.
He stared at Adela with the scared regret of a scolded dog.
Beate's daughter, like a Russian novel, was both admirable and difficult to hold.
And there were some lines that were just icky -
Michael had just gotten home from his job as a busboy; his skin and clothes smelled medium rare.
Udo's lips were the pink of uncooked chicken.
Redeeming features? I really liked the cover!
1/5 And here I was thinking I'd made it through 2022 without a one-star read...
I received my copy of The Recent East from the publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
March 7, 2021
My very great thanks to MCD books for an early copy of this title in exchange for a fair review.
Y'all, I loved this book. The way the story cycles back into itself at the end has a beauty only matched for me in recent reading by Real Life.
Like most books that I find a true love for, I am having a hard time articulating my thoughts. This book is fine with meandering in and out of time, place, and voice, so it takes about the novel's full length to find the true love in it, which I know will be too much investment for some. But it is very much worth the journey, and the journey in itself is also enjoyable.
I love these characters and their casual dramas, and I found a lot of myself in Michael in the unchecked desperation and longing.
My brain is failing me to reach for more, perhaps because there is nothing "remarkable" in this book so much as it is full of a quiet love and a family that is trying their best. And sometimes that's all you can ask for.
For Readers Of: I'll Give You the Sun & The Heart's Invisible Furies
Y'all, I loved this book. The way the story cycles back into itself at the end has a beauty only matched for me in recent reading by Real Life.
Like most books that I find a true love for, I am having a hard time articulating my thoughts. This book is fine with meandering in and out of time, place, and voice, so it takes about the novel's full length to find the true love in it, which I know will be too much investment for some. But it is very much worth the journey, and the journey in itself is also enjoyable.
I love these characters and their casual dramas, and I found a lot of myself in Michael in the unchecked desperation and longing.
My brain is failing me to reach for more, perhaps because there is nothing "remarkable" in this book so much as it is full of a quiet love and a family that is trying their best. And sometimes that's all you can ask for.
For Readers Of: I'll Give You the Sun & The Heart's Invisible Furies
April 10, 2021
Uninteresting characters and a really boring storyline, I expected so much more from this book.
March 1, 2021
The Recent East tells the story of a family after they move from the United States to Germany: a mother, Beate, and her two kids, Adela and Michael. Beate just got divorced, and they are moving into a house she inherited from her parents. The kids are left to their own devices as their mother learns to compose with this new reality. Over the span of multiple years in Germany, we see the children grow into adulthood, and how the move will affect their relationship.
There’s something about this book that’s hard to describe. If you’re looking for a thrill-packed coming-of-age story, this might not be for you. There aren’t a lot of “big” moments. Even some plot points that seem important or have a considerable impact on the story are introduced very casually, no fanfare. Even though it’s relatively fast paced, most of the chapters are just a description of what’s going on in their lives at a certain point in time. This is something I personally enjoy, but it’s not for everyone.
One thing I had a bit more trouble with, is that I feel like we didn’t get to see enough of their lives before the move to Germany. A portion of the book is about how much their lives have changed, but we don’t really get to see how it was before, which makes it hard to connect with the characters’ struggle in the beginning. But I loved the second half of the book so much, and it more than made up for it.
There was a great dinner party scene with Beate towards the end. It was awkward and a little sad and just so well written. I know this seems like a random thing to say but I mostly wanted to write it down to make sure I’d remember it.
I would recommend this book to people who enjoyed Shuggie Bain.
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the advance copy of this book. The Recent East will be published on March 9, 2021.
There’s something about this book that’s hard to describe. If you’re looking for a thrill-packed coming-of-age story, this might not be for you. There aren’t a lot of “big” moments. Even some plot points that seem important or have a considerable impact on the story are introduced very casually, no fanfare. Even though it’s relatively fast paced, most of the chapters are just a description of what’s going on in their lives at a certain point in time. This is something I personally enjoy, but it’s not for everyone.
One thing I had a bit more trouble with, is that I feel like we didn’t get to see enough of their lives before the move to Germany. A portion of the book is about how much their lives have changed, but we don’t really get to see how it was before, which makes it hard to connect with the characters’ struggle in the beginning. But I loved the second half of the book so much, and it more than made up for it.
There was a great dinner party scene with Beate towards the end. It was awkward and a little sad and just so well written. I know this seems like a random thing to say but I mostly wanted to write it down to make sure I’d remember it.
I would recommend this book to people who enjoyed Shuggie Bain.
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the advance copy of this book. The Recent East will be published on March 9, 2021.
March 9, 2024
The only character to get any real development was Michael. The book lost momentum and ended on a ponderously dull note. It could have ended 20 pages early and nothing of value would have been lost. Don't even get me started on all the smoking. Only a hack writer would rely so heavily on such a worn-out bit. Bleh.
March 5, 2024
A schwul German family saga.
March 29, 2021
“He’d recently told Lena how he could find even the plainest men attractive. ‘Democracy,’ she’d answered, then gave him an acetaminophen coated with codeine as they snuck onto a bus without paying.”
Okay gay culture in Berlin is like my favorite subject so this book already had everything going for it and it did not disappoint. It was also so much more than just that: A family drama chronicling three generations, centered around a house in East Berlin. Beate flees with her mother and father in the early 70’s due to the rise of communism and sectioning off of Berlin, and then returns with her two children in the 90’s when the wall comes down.
This is the first novel I’ve read in a while where I’ve really cared deeply about the characters despite how much it seemed they didn’t even want to be liked. It’s an exploration of sexuality for Michael, an exploration of compassion towards humanity for Adela, and a claiming of one’s self for Beata. While I was drawn mostly towards Michael’s storyline, the way that all three storylines were woven together was beautiful and all dependent on each other. Past seamlessly became the present and the future and time became disorienting in the way it is when you wake up one day trying to remember how you got here.
Okay gay culture in Berlin is like my favorite subject so this book already had everything going for it and it did not disappoint. It was also so much more than just that: A family drama chronicling three generations, centered around a house in East Berlin. Beate flees with her mother and father in the early 70’s due to the rise of communism and sectioning off of Berlin, and then returns with her two children in the 90’s when the wall comes down.
This is the first novel I’ve read in a while where I’ve really cared deeply about the characters despite how much it seemed they didn’t even want to be liked. It’s an exploration of sexuality for Michael, an exploration of compassion towards humanity for Adela, and a claiming of one’s self for Beata. While I was drawn mostly towards Michael’s storyline, the way that all three storylines were woven together was beautiful and all dependent on each other. Past seamlessly became the present and the future and time became disorienting in the way it is when you wake up one day trying to remember how you got here.
July 8, 2021
I tolerated this novel to about the halfway mark and then DNF. I thought the flight from and return to East Berlin and the multi-generational story sounded interesting. But in the reading/listening it felt increasingly self-regarding and airless, and proceeded only through the accretion of more and more details about a group of increasingly opaque people.
February 10, 2021
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Grattan's new novel is more than a story of immigration. Beate's story is a beautiful winding road through her life, beginning with a hurried departure from her home in East Germany. Beate's fear of lying to the border soldiers foretells a family who will always look for identification in all the places they choose to live. Beate will grow up to have children who will bond over their distant relationship with their mother. Beate rarely explains things to Adela and Michael. She is locked up with her story.
Adela is precocious and loves to read everything. Michael follows his sister and looks to her for protection. He rarely fits into his peer groups, doesn't like sports, and becomes used to kids making fun of him. When their parents separate, Adela and Michael, struggle with their mother, financially and emotionally.
When a letter arrives for Beate, their lives change, and before they can absorb what is happening, the three of them land back in Germany after the wall came down. Beate's family home once again belongs to her, along with an amount of cash from the former GDR. The children quickly learn German and struggle to fit into a strange yet somewhat familiar culture.
I enjoyed the story's inclusion of added children, husbands, lovers from the past, and ones developing within the storyline. This family struggled for many reasons, and yet, love managed to find them and bring them back together at various times in their lives. Michael and Adela's bond of devotion swept me up and reminded me of family ties I have enjoyed in my life. I loved this novel of different countries and cultures and connections of all kinds. I was interested to see that TG is a middle school teacher. He certainly understands the developmental phases of the characters trying to survive adolescence.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this early e-ARC.
Grattan's new novel is more than a story of immigration. Beate's story is a beautiful winding road through her life, beginning with a hurried departure from her home in East Germany. Beate's fear of lying to the border soldiers foretells a family who will always look for identification in all the places they choose to live. Beate will grow up to have children who will bond over their distant relationship with their mother. Beate rarely explains things to Adela and Michael. She is locked up with her story.
Adela is precocious and loves to read everything. Michael follows his sister and looks to her for protection. He rarely fits into his peer groups, doesn't like sports, and becomes used to kids making fun of him. When their parents separate, Adela and Michael, struggle with their mother, financially and emotionally.
When a letter arrives for Beate, their lives change, and before they can absorb what is happening, the three of them land back in Germany after the wall came down. Beate's family home once again belongs to her, along with an amount of cash from the former GDR. The children quickly learn German and struggle to fit into a strange yet somewhat familiar culture.
I enjoyed the story's inclusion of added children, husbands, lovers from the past, and ones developing within the storyline. This family struggled for many reasons, and yet, love managed to find them and bring them back together at various times in their lives. Michael and Adela's bond of devotion swept me up and reminded me of family ties I have enjoyed in my life. I loved this novel of different countries and cultures and connections of all kinds. I was interested to see that TG is a middle school teacher. He certainly understands the developmental phases of the characters trying to survive adolescence.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this early e-ARC.
May 10, 2022
"Her house was a carousel of mistakes," Beatta thinks toward the end of this really funny and touching multi-generational family story. The book lands some punches but it never gets bogged down in melodrama. Happily it also avoided becoming a "coming of age" book or a "gay misfortune" story. We see each character in their adolescence and later across decades. Each gets the proverbial rug pulled out from under them and has to learn how to accept help getting back on their feet.
The unusual setting is well depicted and contributes to the theme (among many) of what we lately might call cancellation, or groupthink, depending on your politics. Grattan's careful, lively writing makes this book seem so easy - never showing off but always energetic. Fans of Anne Tyler's precise, surprising books will particularly enjoy THE RECENT EAST.
Coincidentally I read this together with Helen Oyeyemi's WHITE IS FOR WITCHING. They could not be more different in tone, but the similarities were striking. Both books feature twins, attacks on refugees, giant old houses full of secrets, people disappearing, characters called "Miri", four generations, people staying in bed for days, distant fathers, and seaside locations. It's a funny thing that happens with my favorite books - they synchronize or echo with whatever else I am reading, or with current events - but in this case the shared territory was really incredible and lifted the experience of both books.
The unusual setting is well depicted and contributes to the theme (among many) of what we lately might call cancellation, or groupthink, depending on your politics. Grattan's careful, lively writing makes this book seem so easy - never showing off but always energetic. Fans of Anne Tyler's precise, surprising books will particularly enjoy THE RECENT EAST.
Coincidentally I read this together with Helen Oyeyemi's WHITE IS FOR WITCHING. They could not be more different in tone, but the similarities were striking. Both books feature twins, attacks on refugees, giant old houses full of secrets, people disappearing, characters called "Miri", four generations, people staying in bed for days, distant fathers, and seaside locations. It's a funny thing that happens with my favorite books - they synchronize or echo with whatever else I am reading, or with current events - but in this case the shared territory was really incredible and lifted the experience of both books.
March 28, 2021
Great characters and writing. I could tell it was thoroughly researched. I love when literary fiction can fully transport you to another time - this book, for the majority, being Germany in the 90s.
Unfortunately the plot felt meandering and unfocused. I wanted more to happen, especially since the characters were interesting.
Unfortunately the plot felt meandering and unfocused. I wanted more to happen, especially since the characters were interesting.
March 26, 2021
THE RECENT EAST REVIEW
Author: Thomas Grattan
Year: 2021
Review:
Plot: I immediately liked this books because it is a multigenerational novel. It alternates between present and past following the life of Beate, a girl who fled East Germany and managed to move to the West, before moving to different countries. We see her grow from childhood to an old age, living in East Germany, then West, UK and the USA, and back to her hometown, I absolutely adored how the city changes as well, being a ghost town, then a safe spot for refugees (until it is not safe anymore) and then a resort town. Being multigenerational, the characters go through a lot. I like how Beate dealt with the moving arounds, how Michael (Beate's son) dealt with being gay in the 80's and 90's. I think the refugees against neo-nazis plot had been more developed and, for me, Otto (Michael's cousin) never did enough to redeem himself for associating with the wrong people, I wish that had been explored better. The relationship between Michael and his sister Adela seemed a bit odd sometimes, they never seemed to properly get along, but I felt like we never got enough background to understand why.
Writing: the writing is fantastic, especially for a debut! I loved how the novel went back and forth between present and past and how it alternated the main character each time.
Characters: As mentioned before, I wish I had a bit more of background story between Adela and Michael. But also between Beate and her cousin, and Otto. The characters seemed to simply enter each other's lives and I often felt like there was not enough depth in their relationships for me to understand what they felt towards the other.
Verdict: this is a book I will recommend for lovers of both contemporary and historical fiction literature. There are aspects I wish I had understood better but I am very excited to read any other new release by Thomas Grattan!
Author: Thomas Grattan
Year: 2021
Review:
Plot: I immediately liked this books because it is a multigenerational novel. It alternates between present and past following the life of Beate, a girl who fled East Germany and managed to move to the West, before moving to different countries. We see her grow from childhood to an old age, living in East Germany, then West, UK and the USA, and back to her hometown, I absolutely adored how the city changes as well, being a ghost town, then a safe spot for refugees (until it is not safe anymore) and then a resort town. Being multigenerational, the characters go through a lot. I like how Beate dealt with the moving arounds, how Michael (Beate's son) dealt with being gay in the 80's and 90's. I think the refugees against neo-nazis plot had been more developed and, for me, Otto (Michael's cousin) never did enough to redeem himself for associating with the wrong people, I wish that had been explored better. The relationship between Michael and his sister Adela seemed a bit odd sometimes, they never seemed to properly get along, but I felt like we never got enough background to understand why.
Writing: the writing is fantastic, especially for a debut! I loved how the novel went back and forth between present and past and how it alternated the main character each time.
Characters: As mentioned before, I wish I had a bit more of background story between Adela and Michael. But also between Beate and her cousin, and Otto. The characters seemed to simply enter each other's lives and I often felt like there was not enough depth in their relationships for me to understand what they felt towards the other.
Verdict: this is a book I will recommend for lovers of both contemporary and historical fiction literature. There are aspects I wish I had understood better but I am very excited to read any other new release by Thomas Grattan!
March 8, 2021
I neither loved or disliked this book. There were some parts of The Recent East that I really enjoyed. I liked that the story was told in vignettes and it helped the story really cover a lot of ground quickly. I also found myself far more interested in certain storylines within the book and when it veered from those (i.e. more Michael and Udo please) I found myself wanting to get back to the parts that I liked more.
I found all of the characters really interesting. They felt very real, they made terrible choices in their lives but it never felt too much or out of character. Every choice felt true to life and the world that Grattan created.
I will say, the story dragged for me just a bit at the end. There were a couple of places that felt like a nice ending spot but it kept going. I completely understand why it ended the way it did, I just wish a bit could have been cut out to get there.
All in all, I thought this was a great debut and can't wait to see what Thomas Grattan comes out with next.
Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an eARC of The Recent East in exchange for an honest review.
I found all of the characters really interesting. They felt very real, they made terrible choices in their lives but it never felt too much or out of character. Every choice felt true to life and the world that Grattan created.
I will say, the story dragged for me just a bit at the end. There were a couple of places that felt like a nice ending spot but it kept going. I completely understand why it ended the way it did, I just wish a bit could have been cut out to get there.
All in all, I thought this was a great debut and can't wait to see what Thomas Grattan comes out with next.
Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an eARC of The Recent East in exchange for an honest review.
January 1, 2022
As someone who reads a lot of gay fiction and as someone who is obsessed with the fall of communism in Europe and all things GDR, this book was a no-brainer for reading and enjoying. If either genre interests you, read this book.
I’m not as sold on the characterizations as other reviews I have read. Adela is the moral compass, but the type of moral compass you actually loathe. Maybe that’s intentional? Michael, as the gay protagonist is fearless and yet also perhaps a bit too self destructive at 14 for my liking. And Beate, or the German Lady, as her children call her is most of the time just sad. But sad for what? For a life that never happened? For longing for things and then not liking them when they occur?
There are several times Grattan’s characters are both glad to see someone exit their life and sad to see them exit. And perhaps that is what Grattan wants you to feel - that emotion of being both ready for a break and dreading it at the same time. For me, that brought the book down a notch. For others, it may be the hook.
Overall, I enjoyed the story and the setting of the novel enough to finish in just over 24 hours. The writing is done well, even if I still don’t know which character I would root for in real life.
I’m not as sold on the characterizations as other reviews I have read. Adela is the moral compass, but the type of moral compass you actually loathe. Maybe that’s intentional? Michael, as the gay protagonist is fearless and yet also perhaps a bit too self destructive at 14 for my liking. And Beate, or the German Lady, as her children call her is most of the time just sad. But sad for what? For a life that never happened? For longing for things and then not liking them when they occur?
There are several times Grattan’s characters are both glad to see someone exit their life and sad to see them exit. And perhaps that is what Grattan wants you to feel - that emotion of being both ready for a break and dreading it at the same time. For me, that brought the book down a notch. For others, it may be the hook.
Overall, I enjoyed the story and the setting of the novel enough to finish in just over 24 hours. The writing is done well, even if I still don’t know which character I would root for in real life.
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