Heartstop: Stories

by Martin Grzimek

Heartstop  ( Stillstand des Herzens ) contains three unusual and riveting stories by Martin Grzimek, a highly acclaimed young German writer. In the first, “Heartstop,” a businessman goes to a nightclub to meet his wife’s former lover but instead finds a beautiful, provocative woman. The young wife in “Timestop” would like to rid herself of her husband and does so, but in a way she did not expect. In “Finlandia,” the island in a Finnish lake where a young married couple is spending a solitary vacation turns increasingly sinister. The stories are thematically linked by an atmosphere of unease, of inevitable menace––the seemingly harmless events of everyday life weave themselves into a net in which ordinary people are caught, making time and even hearts stand still.

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of three stories which all have the dysfunction of human relationships as a central theme. In each story there is a feeling of something ominous moving mostly beyond the ordinary physical senses; fragments of conversation where one hears their name dissolving into murmurs or whispers, suspicions that trusted people are about to betray you,the fear of being ensnared in some sinister plot. The idea that what is real may not be trusted as such is played out convincingly in all three stories so that I had this pervasive sense of unease after reading this volume.

[Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I have books on my shelf for many years and can't remember why I acquired them. Having long forgotten the purpose of this one, I wrongly considered it a "randomly acquired" paperback. Today, I thought I'd finally read and dispatch it quickly. I was unpleasantly surprised by the crossdressing murderer, a fictional trope I indeed research, so now I realize why I bought this book many years ago, but, gosh, I wasn't prepared for that to happen in my reading material today.