Description
Book SynopsisHow do you will a life into order? Adrift in Germany, a pregnant, aimless Argentine and her small circle of friends try and fail to find out.
Fall in Heidelberg, and in a student residence a not-student, a woman from Argentina, is busy not figuring out what to do next. She’s pregnant. Shanice, a Japanese student she had barely befriended, has died. Shanice’s mother has arrived from Tokyo and will not leave. And Javier Miguel, a fellow Argentine, is frantic that his sister back home might be overly involved with a local psychic. The German Room is a novel of not-moving on, of not-growing up, of not-failing better. As fall turns to winter, things change but nothing is different, and comedy and tragedy are harder to tell apart. And in Carla Maliandi’s hands, entropy becomes a vibrant, life-affirming creative force.
Trade Review"Maliandi’s prose is viciously perceptive, and manages to capture a heady mix of excitement and nostalgia. (5 stars)" —The Skinny
"The cosmopolitanism of this novel simultaneously embodies the universal displacement and lack of purpose an entire generation is experiencing." —Glasgow Review of Books
"A deeply moving exploration of doing and undoing, birth and death – of what we inherit and what we choose to reject." —Kirkus
"Both moving and entertaining." —The Stinging Fly
"Maliandi, an accomplished playwright, fashions characters with an admirable economy, and yet each of her fascinating figures is given sufficient space to develop." —Asymptote
