Leaving Berlin: A Novel, by Joseph Kanon
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Leaving Berlin: A Novel, by Joseph Kanon
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New York Times Notable Book * NPR Best Books 2015 * Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2015 The acclaimed author of The Good German “deftly captures the ambience” (The New York Times Book Review) of postwar East Berlin in his “thought-provoking, pulse-pounding” (Wall Street Journal) New York Times bestseller—a sweeping spy thriller about a city caught between political idealism and the harsh realities of Soviet occupation.Berlin, 1948. Almost four years after the war’s end, the city is still in ruins, a physical wasteland and a political symbol about to rupture. In the West, a defiant, blockaded city is barely surviving on airlifted supplies; in the East, the heady early days of political reconstruction are being undermined by the murky compromises of the Cold War. Espionage, like the black market, is a fact of life. Even culture has become a battleground, with German intellectuals being lured back from exile to add credibility to the competing sectors. Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his youth have now put him in the crosshairs of the McCarthy witch-hunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: he will earn his way back to America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from the start things go fatally wrong. A kidnapping misfires, an East German agent is killed, and Alex finds himself a wanted man. Worse, he discovers his real assignment—to spy on the woman he left behind, the only woman he has ever loved. Changing sides in Berlin is as easy as crossing a sector border. But where do we draw the lines of our moral boundaries? At betrayal? Survival? Murder? Joseph Kanon’s compelling thriller is a love story that brilliantly brings a shadowy period of history vividly to life.
Leaving Berlin: A Novel, by Joseph Kanon - Amazon Sales Rank: #9548 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-03-03
- Released on: 2015-03-03
- Format: Kindle eBook
Leaving Berlin: A Novel, by Joseph Kanon Review “Engaging. . . . deftly captures the ambience of a city that’s still a wasteland almost four years after the Nazis’ defeat. . . . Kanon keeps the story humming along, enriching the main narrative with vignettes that heighten the atmosphere of duplicity and distrust.” (The New York Times Book Review)“Joseph Kanon’s thought-provoking, pulse-pounding historical espionage thriller [is] stuffed with incident and surprise. . . . Mr. Kanon, author now of seven top-notch novels of period political intrigue, conveys the bleak, oppressive, and creepy atmosphere of occupied Berlin in a detailed, impressive manner. . . . Leaving Berlin is a mix of tense action sequences, sepia-tinged reminiscence, convincing discourse and Berliner wit.” (Wall Street Journal)“The old-fashioned spy craft, the many plot twists and the moral ambiguities that exist in all of the characters make Leaving Berlin an intriguing, page-turning thriller.There’s also a star-crossed love story — and an airport farewell — that might remind some readers of Bogie and Bergman. But it’s the author’s attention to historical detail — his ability to convey the sights, sounds and feel of a beaten-down Berlin — that makes this book so compelling.” (Ft. Worth Star Telegram)"Kanon, who writes his novels at the New York Public Library, conjures from there a Berlin of authentic menace and such hairpin turns that Leaving Berlin evokes comparisons to John LeCarre and Alan Furst. Such good company." (New York Daily News)“Not for nothing has Kanon – whose previous books include The Good German, which was made into a film starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett, has been compared to the suspense masters Graham Greene and John LeCarre. He’s certainly in the ballpark.” (Buffalo News)“A pleasure from start to finish, blending literary finesse with action, this atmospheric historical thriller will appeal not only to Kanon’s many fans but to those who enjoy Alan Furst, Philip Kerr, and other masters of wartime and postwar espionage fiction.” (Library Journal (starred))“Another compelling, intellectually charged period piece byKanon, who works in the shadows of fear as well as anyone now writing.” (Kirkus Reviews)“Kanon, like Alan Furst, has found a landscape and made it his own. In fact, the two writers make outstanding bookends in any collection of WWII fiction, Furst bringing Paris just before and during the war to vivid life, and Kanon doing the same for Berlin in its aftermath.” (Booklist)“Story, suspense, substance, and style are inextricably linked in a work that masterfully exploits and exquisitely transcends spy-genre possibilities.” (Washington Independent Review of Books)INTERNATIONAL PRAISE FOR LEAVING BERLIN: “If you are looking for a combination of le Carre and Graham Greene, Leaving Berlin will do the trick perfectly. . . . One of the most exciting books I have read for years.” (Alexander McCall Smith, Mail on Sunday (London), named Book of the Year)“Galloping and compulsive…I can’t imagine anyone putting it down…. Admirably atmospheric, the picture of the ravaged Berlin excellently done… An enjoyable thriller,high-class entertainment.” (Allan Massie, the Scotsman)“An unforgettable picture of a city wrecked by defeat and riddled withbetrayal. Brilliant." (Kate Saunders, The Times)“Kanon brings the hardships and moral decay of post-war Berlin to lifein glorious detail, ratcheting up the suspense as Meier tries to escape the netclosing in on all sides. Absorbing.” (Sunday Express)
About the Author Joseph Kanon is the Edgar Award–winning author of Istanbul Passage, Los Alamos, The Prodigal Spy, Alibi, Stardust, and The Good German, which was made into a major motion picture starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a book publishing executive. He lives in New York City.
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53 of 56 people found the following review helpful. A fine historical spy novel By Paul C. Glusman Best spy novel I've read in a long time. Kanon knows the period, the politics and the traps that people fell into, their instinctive solidarity with socialism enmeshing them in the messy business of a soviet occupation. Alex Meier, a Jewish writer who fled Germany after being briefly imprisoned by the Nazis (and set free by a bribe) has been living in LA. His marriage in tatters, he has a 10 year old American son. He is forced to leave the U.S., deported and makes a secret deal with the CIA that he can come back after a period of reporting back on other exile artists, who have fled or otherwise returned to Germany. Of course then everything goes haywire. He is being betrayed, but by whom? The young brother of a former friend who died in Spain turns up as an East German political cop. A former lover is sleeping with a Russian officer yet acts very seductive with Alex. His case officer seems hostile. He has to deal with ex Nazi doctors and cops, as well as a German POW who's escaped from the mines. Berthold Brecht and his group are in the background of the Kulturbund, artists cultivated by East Germany to present a cultivated face on the new post-Nazi German nation. Meier has to act and think fast, and quickly realizes that he is on his own and there is perhaps nobody he can trust. It is helpful if you know the background of the postwar period, and are familiar a bit with Brecht, as well as the German film industry. But the plot moves quickly. I found myself almost skipping meals to find out what happens next. Yes it is almost a bit too much to be real, but it is fiction, and at the end it is satisfying as Kanon wraps it all up with the skill of a Dashiel Hammett. Kanon has written some great books earlier, but this may be his best.
88 of 99 people found the following review helpful. On every page of this elegant, complex spy thriller, you feel the grey chill of 1949 Berlin. By Jesse Kornbluth American media loves horse races, which is a good reason to avoid watching political pundits on cable TV. Book reviewers have resisted this reductionist way of considering writers, but in recent years I’ve seen Alan Furst and Joseph Kanon often mentioned in the same sentence. Furst is generally regarded as America’s master of the historical spy novel, but Kanon has, with each book, steadily gained ground.“Leaving Berlin” is a big book that will put Kanon even with Furst, or maybe ahead. (For me, “big” means 371 pages.) It’s got a terrific plot hook — Alex Meier, a German-Jewish writer who fled the Nazis, gets into political trouble in the United States, and, in 1949, at the height of the Berlin Airlift, returns to live in his native city. If he can give useful information to American spymasters, he can return to Los Angeles and his young son; as he’s not a writer of spy thrillers, he’s a bit over his head.Kanon has written about postwar Berlin before — 'The Good German' is set there. (It became a movie, starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett.) The grey chill of the cover photo is also in Kanon’s prose; on every page, you feel the shabbiness of the housing, the shortage of food and electricity, and, mostly, the oppressive presence of the Russians. It’s a bitter irony; the Nazi thugs have been replaced by Russian goons. Idealism? The new Socialist paradise? By 1949, even the most dedicated Socialists know better: “Nobody ever said it would be easy… A just society must be worth a few sacrifices, no?”Alex Meier arrives with a realist’s view of the East German authorities. (In Washington, he’d been grilled by Joe McCarthy’s interrogators. “He’d seen the faces before, the jowls and smirks, when they’d been Nazis.”) He is less armored against friends from his much happier early years, and it’s no surprise that he takes up with a woman who was his first lover. But in a Kanon novel, identity is a mask. People are rarely who they seem to be. His lover, especially, but really, everyone. (Even Bertolt Brecht, a prickly genius of astonishing selfishness, isn’t quite as offensive — he rarely bathed and stank like a badger — as historical accounts describe him.)Because almost everyone has at least two faces, the book is an onion that slowly gets peeled. For veteran readers of thrillers, this will be pure pleasure. For me, it’s a challenge — my novel has three major characters, and they struggle with their single identities. But with each Kanon novel, I’m getting smarter. Soon I may, like some of you, be able to read his elegant, complex novels without gasping every few pages.
57 of 64 people found the following review helpful. After the war, before the Wall By Maine Colonial I've always enjoyed Joseph Kanon's books, which are thrillers set in various places around the world, but all taking place shortly after World War II. Kanon mines that same ground over and over because it's one of the richest veins of material you could ever hope to find. The war has ended, but not the fighting. It is just a different kind of war game, with the players shifted around. No more Allies fighting Nazis; now it's the Cold War, with Berlin being dead center in the new conflict.Alex Meier, the novel's protagonist, had been a celebrated young novelist in Germany in the 1930s. Alex was a Social Democrat with a Jewish father, and neither one of those were good things to be once the Nazis took over. But he was friends with the younger members of the powerful von Bernuth family, and their father got Alex out of the country before it was too late. Alex's parents never got out.Alex made a new home in the US, married and had a son. Then, along came the Red Scare and, suddenly, a young German socialist was in danger from the government yet again. To avoid being deported from the US permanently and losing all contact with his son, Alex agrees to act as a US government agent by returning to Berlin for a time; in particular to the Soviet Occupied Zone, where several other leftist German exiles had returned, the most prominent being playwright Berthold Brecht. Alex's assignment is to provide information about his friends in the new Germany, and if he does a good job, the promise is that he can return to the US.Berlin in 1949 was about the most interesting place imaginable. Interesting in the usual sense, but also in the sense of the old curse, "May you live in interesting times." The city was divided into four occupation zones for each of the Allied powers, but there was no Berlin Wall yet. Tensions between the Soviets and the other Allies were increasing by the day, as the Soviets tried to squeeze the Allies out of the city, deep within the eastern half of the country, which the Soviets planned as a satellite state.Along with the political and military Cold War, there was also a so-called Cultural Cold War. The Soviets and the West vied for superiority in literature, music, theater and all the other arts. The Soviets lavished privileges on artists who could burnish the reputation of communism around the world. Alex, who is well remembered as a novelist, is welcomed warmly in the Soviet Occupied Zone and treated as a valued member of the new socialist dream society. As an instantly prominent artist comrade, he can eat and drink off ration at the Kulturbund and is awarded a nice apartment all to himself, with a view to the street rather than the drab rear.Alex quickly finds that Berlin is full of secrets and lies, with danger and betrayal all around him. This is no longer the city of his youth. His childhood home is rubble and his old and new friends may not be what they seem. Alex's reconnecting with his old love, Irene von Bernuth, who is now the mistress of a high-level Soviet military man, excites his US intelligence contacts, but it endangers Alex's heart and much more. What was supposed to be a quick and easy job soon turns deadly dangerous, and Alex must rely on his wits to save himself and those he still feels loyal to.I've read a lot of espionage thrillers, but this one has one of the most satisfyingly twisty-turny plots ever; enough to make your head spin and heart pound. Along with the complex and exciting plot, Kanon delivers a large cast of realistic characters, starting with Alex, but also including childhood friends (especially Irene von Bernuth), Soviet officers, Alex's minder from the Party, intelligence contacts and more. Kanon also has a gift for invoking the atmosphere of the ruined city and what Berliners do to survive in the new reality.This is Kanon's second book set in Berlin, with the first being The Good German, made into the movie starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. This is a very different story, but also one that would make a terrific film. I feel sure of that, because Kanon's powerfully evocative writing turned it into a tale that played out in my head as a movie while I was reading.Another particular strength of the book is the focus on the return to East Berlin of so many members of the cultural and intellectual elite who missed their homeland and were true believers in the communist cause. They included Brecht and writers like Arnold Zweig, Anna Seghers and Stefan Heym.Initially celebrated and given privileges not available to others in the workers' state, the returnees who spent the Nazi years in the West, rather than in Moscow, soon found their situations changed. Stalin and his henchmen began an "anti-cosmopolitan" campaign in 1950, targeting those who had spent time in the West. Many were expelled from the Communist Party, imprisoned on trumped-up charges and worse. If you'd like to read more on the subject, you might try Edith Anderson's Love in Exile: An American Writer's Memoir of Life in Divided Berlin. Or, to read about Bertold Brecht's tumultuous history with his native country, as well as his friends, colleagues and lovers, check out a new book by Pamela Katz: Brecht, Weill, Three Women, and Germany on the Brink.Note: Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy, via NetGalley.
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