This is another novel I selected with no idea whence it came - though I have some vague recollection of it being tucked into a box I rescued from the end of a driveway downtown. I don't read many translations - it is my experience that there is something usually lost in it. Unfortunately, this book only reinforced that belief.*
I wish I knew German. Not only is it a great sounding language (schmetterling for butterfly? Come on.) But it also probably saves Dirk Kurbjuweit's Fear. This book has potential in English, but it dies a slow death on the table with no resuscitation possible.
"Randolph Tiefenthaler insists he had a normal childhood, though he grew up with a father who kept thirty loaded guns in the house. A modestly successful architect with an attractive, intelligent wife, Rebecca, and two children, Randolph finds his life turned upside down when his father, a man he loves yet has always feared, is imprisoned for murder.…
Fear is the story of the twisted events leading up to his father’s incarceration. It begins when Randolph and his family move into a new building and meet their neighbour, Dieter Tiberius, the peculiar yet seemingly friendly man living in the basement apartment. As the Tiefenthalers settle into their home, they become increasingly disturbed as Dieter’s strange behaviour turns malevolent — sending erotic letters to Rebecca, spying, making accusations of child abuse, and filing police reports against the Tiefenthalers. Finally, Randolph confesses his own feelings of desperation and helplessness, which ultimately lead to his father’s intervention."
All the pieces are there - solid characterization, a looming threat, a narrator that feels increasingly like they are unreliable - but it comes to fruition way too late in the game, and this isn't a long book by any means, clocking in at only 304 pages. I couldn't help but feel the dreaded ... that's it???
There is considerable effort put into the building of tension, and I expected something more to happen, especially after spending all that time in Randolph's head, getting to know the ins and outs of his marriage, his upbringing, his thoughts and self-doubts and struggles with his ideas of masculinity. I'm not sure reading it as it was written would resolve that issue, but I'm willing to let myself believe it. Benefit of the doubt to the author, and all that - he is a journalist, and this book was adapted into a 2017 German thriller TV movie titled Fear - The Enemy in My House. One of his other books in mandatory reading in a school district in Germany. The man probably knows how to write... in German.
Viel Spaß beim Lesen! (Happy reading!)
Fräulein Holly
* There is only one translated book that has stood out to me in recent years, and that is Catherine Leroux's The Party Wall, which I recommend wholeheartedly in English and should pick up sometime in its native French. Go into it cold, with no idea what you're about to read - I was given this blessing by my good friend Deb and it turns out the top review on Goodreads says the same thing.
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