Krüger, Michael

"The narrator of this tale of love and loss is a middle-aged German composer who writes serious avant-garde music, but makes a living writing theme music for television. When Judit, an ambitious young cello player from Budapest (whose mother was once the composer's lover and who may or may not be his daughter), shows up on his doorstep, he agrees to take her in while she studies at the conservatory in Munich. Judit's presence evokes memories of a far different time for the composer, when life was about art and his biggest concern was finding a room for an afternoon tryst. When our protagonists set out for the composer's house in southern France, where he will finish his opera and she will master her instrument, it gradually becomes clear that this young woman is playing more than the cello"--Publisher's description.

Following Michael Kruger's The End of the Novel (George Braziller, 1992), The Man in the Tower expands and deepens Krueger's insightful and often ironic investigation of the artist in society. In beautifully crafted prose, The Man in the Tower blends two literary forms: the artist's monologue and the suspense novel. The narrator is a lonely German painter who rents an isolated tower in the South of France in order to paint the seasonal changes in nature. Plagued by exhaustive introspection and chronic artist's block, he finds comfort in translating Dante's Divine Comedy. Soon, though, an enigmatic woman interrupts his lofty reflections and entangles him in the web of a chilling murder mystery. Where did the woman go after she disappeared in the painter's car? Did Fat Peter, the woman's 'colleague,' murder the Toulouse policeman? No one knows. Condemned by the locals as guilty by association, the painter flees to Florence in search of the woman. In the course of this Dantesque journey, he encounters motley characters - including an art-collecting sausage maker and an ex-CIA agent - that compel him to reflect on his own motivations. At once satirical and subtle, gripping and intelligent, The Man in the Tower takes readers on a turbulent journey through an interior labyrinth.

The story of two Germans, a Jew whose life was stolen and the onetime Nazi who stole it. The narrator is an ethnographer famous for his work on the Indians of Brazil. The story opens as he receives a letter from the Jew whom he thought dead and whose book he plagiarized during World War II. At the age of 80, the professor's life is about to be exposed as a big lie. By the author of The Man in the Tower.

Karl Schlamminger (geb. 1935) ist ein international renommierter Künstler, der sich unter Verwendung verschiedenster Werkstoffe vor allem mit aus der Geometrie abgeleiteten Formen auseinandergesetzt hat. Im vorliegenden Band beschäftigt sich Schlamminger mit Katalogen von Kunstauktionen, die inzwischen abgelaufen sind. Diese haben ihren ursprünglichen Zweck erfüllt und sind nicht mehr wichtig für die Öffentlichkeit. Und genau an diesem Punkt werden sie interessant für den Künstler. Bestimmte Bilder verführen ihn zu einer Umwandlung. Mit Pinsel und Tusche mischt sich Schlamminger ein, findet ungeahnte Spielräume. So entstehen neue Kunstwerke, die auf den zweiten Blick einen ganz besonderen Reiz entfalten.