Crabwalk

Binding: hardcover

Format: Import

Number Of Pages: 240

Release Date: 01-04-2003

Details: Product Description
The author of the

Tin Drum

takes on the worst maritime disaster in history, the sinking of a German cruise ship packed with refugees by a Soviet sub--a disaster that killed nine thousand people. 60,000 first printing.


From Booklist
The latest novel by this Nobel laureate is a stunning work of historical fiction, centering on the worst maritime disaster in history, the sinking of
Wilhelm Gustloff on January 30, 1945, by a Soviet submarine. Packed with more than 10,000 people, mostly refugees, only 1,238 survived the sinking. Grass' narrator, a journalist named Paul Pokriefke, is a survivor of that disaster--of sorts. His mother was on board and nine months pregnant on that fateful day, and Paul was born soon after she was rescued. Because of his connection with the disaster, Pokriefke is hired to write its history. While researching on the Internet, Pokriefke discovers that his estranged teenage son is also interested in the disaster, spurred on by his grandmother, whose postwar life was spent in East Germany, and by the rising skinhead movement. It is here that fate overtakes the Pokriefke family. The ship's history and that of the Pokriefkes is too strongly intertwined, and one tragedy leads to the next.
Frank Caso

Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
About the Author

Born in Danzig, Germany, in 1927,
Günter Grass is the widely acclaimed author of plays, essays, poems, and numerous novels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.





Born in Danzig, Germany, in 1927,
Günter Grass is the widely acclaimed author of plays, essays, poems, and numerous novels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1

"WHY ONLY NOW?" HE SAYS, this person not to be confused with me. Well, because Mother's incessant nagging...Because I wanted to cry the way I did at the time, when the cry spread across the water, but couldn't anymore...Because for the true story...hardly more than three lines...Because only now...

The words still don't come easily. This person, who doesn't like excuses, reminds me that I'm a professional: had a way with words at a young age, signed on as a cub reporter with one of the Springer tabloids, soon had the lingo down pat, then switched over to the Tageszeitung, where Springer was the favorite whipping boy, later kept it short and sweet as a mercenary for various news agencies, and eventually freelanced for a while, chopping and shredding all sorts of subjects to be served up as articles: something new every day. The news of the day.

True enough, I said. But that's about all I know how to do. If I really have to settle my own historical accounts now, everything I messed up is going to be ascribed to the sinking of a ship. Why? Because Mother was nine months pregnant when it happened, because it's sheer coincidence that I'm alive.

And already, again, I'm doing someone else's bidding, but at least I can leave myself out of it for the time being, because this story began long before me, more than a hundred years ago, in Schwerin, the ducal seat of Mecklenburg, nestled amid seven lakes, priding itself on postcards of its Schelfstadt district and a castle bristling with turrets, and outwardly left unharmed by the wars.

Initially I didn't think a provincial burg that history had crossed off long ago could attract anyone besides tourists, but then the starting place for my story suddenly acquired a presence on the Internet. An anonymous source was posting biographical information, complete with dates, street names, and report cards, a treasure trove for someone like me who was under pressure to dig up the past.

I'd bought myself a Mac, with a modem, as soon as these things came on the market. For my work I need to be able to snare information wherever it may be wandering around the world. I got pretty good at using the computer. Soon terms l