Berlin Syndrome
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Now a major film, distributed by Artificial Eye.
Berlin. The once-divided city still holds its share of secrets.
One afternoon, near the site of the Berlin Wall, backpacker Clare meets charismatic local Andi. The attraction is instant and they spend the night together.
But when Clare wakes up in Andi’s apartment, she discovers that the door is locked. And it soon becomes clear that he has no intention of letting her go.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Australian architectural photographer Clare, the heroine of Australian author Joosten's claustrophobic, carefully crafted first novel, accepts charming English teacher Andi's offer of a night in his Berlin apartment, then finds herself locked there indefinitely, until, as Andi tells her, "in time you will understand.... You will want to stay." Joosten offers just enough of the panoramic and stark beauty of the city to emphasize Clare's isolation, and effectively communicates the development of Clare's confused attachment to her captor, while presenting Andi's deluded self-perception of himself as normal. But she stops short of letting Clare's thoughts become disordered enough to throw the reader off-balance, as the conceit of the plot demands. As a result, the story sometimes feels timidly depressing where it could have been forthrightly nightmarish. This becomes most evident in the anticlimactic ending, in which the consequences of Clare's final move play out offstage. A film based on this thriller is due for U.S. release this summer.
