In 1988 Saul Adler (a narcissistic, young historian) is hit by a car on the Abbey Road. He is apparently fine; he gets up and goes to see his art student girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau. They have sex then break up, but not before she has photographed Saul crossing the same Abbey Road. Saul leaves to study in communist East Berlin, two months before the Wall comes down. There he will encounter – significantly – both his assigned translator and his translator’s sister, who swears she has seen a jaguar prowling the city. He will fall in love and brood upon his difficult, authoritarian father. And he will befriend a hippy, Rainer, who may or may not be a Stasi agent, but will certainly return to haunt him in middle age. In 2016, Saul Adler is hit by a car on the Abbey Road. He is rushed to hospital, where he spends the following days slipping in and out of consciousness, and in and out of memories of the past.
The Man Who Saw Everything
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Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2019
‘An ice-cold skewering of patriarchy, humanity and the darkness of 20th century Europe’ The Times
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‘It’s like this, Saul Adler.’
‘No, it’s like this, Jennifer Moreau.’
In 1988, Saul Adler is hit by a car on the Abbey Road. Apparently fine, he gets up and poses for a photograph taken by his girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau. He carries this photo with him to East Berlin: a fragment of the present, an anchor to the West.
But in the GDR he finds himself troubled by time – stalked by the spectres of history, slipping in and out of a future that does not yet exist. Until, in 2016, Saul attempts to cross the Abbey Road again . . .
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‘A time-bending, location-hopping tale of love, truth and the power of seeing. Thoroughly gripping’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Writing so beautiful it stops the reader on the page’ Independent
‘Levy splices time in artfully believable, mesmerizing strokes’ Lambda Literary
‘Skewering totalitarianism – from the state, to the family, to the strictures of the male gaze – Levy explodes conventional narrative to explore the individual’s place and culpability within history’ Guardian
‘An utterly beguiling fever dream’ Daily Telegraph
Additional information
| Weight | 0.149 kg |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 19.8 × 12.9 × 1.3 cm |
| Book_author | Levy, Deborah |
| Publisher | Penguin Books |
| Imprint | Penguin Books |
| Cover | Paperback |
| Pages | 199 |
| Language | English |
| Edition | 1st paperback ed |
| Dewey | 823.92 (edition:23) |
| Readership | General – Trade / Code: K |
