Cool. Balanced. Modern. The precisions of science, the wild variance of lust, the catharsis of confession and the fear of failure - these are things that happen in the Glass Room. High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a wonder of steel and glass and onyx built specially for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile. But the radiant honesty of 1930 that the house, with its unique Glass Room, seems to engender quickly tarnishes as the storm clouds of WW2 gather, and eventually the family must flee, accompanied by Viktor's lover and her child. But the house's story is far from over, and as it passes from hand to hand, from Czech to Russian, both the best and the worst of the history of Eastern Europe becomes somehow embodied and perhaps emboldened within the beautiful and austere surfaces and planes so carefully designed, until events become full-circle.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Abacus, Little, Brown Book Group
ISBN-10
0349139008
ISBN-13
9780349139005
eBay Product ID (ePID)
141561257
Product Key Features
Author
Simon Mawer
Format
B-Format Paperback, Paperback
Language
English
Topic
General & Literary Fiction
Additional Product Features
Place of Publication
London
Series Title
Abacus 40th Anniversary
Prizes
Shortlisted for Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2010 and Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize 2010 and Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2009. Long-listed for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2011.
Author Biography
Simon Mawer was born in 1948 in England, and spent his childhood there, in Cyprus and in Malta. He has lived with his wife in Italy for more than 20 years, and he teaches at the English School in Rome.