Fear
A Novel
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
“Fear shifts our moral codes. It makes us accessories to murder. A great achievement.” —Herman Koch, author of The Dinner
An acclaimed German writer makes his American debut with this gripping and sophisticated thriller reminiscent of The Dinner and the early novels of Ian McEwan, about the murder of a neighbor who had been harassing a middle-class family—and the relative imprisoned for the crime.
"I had always believed my father capable of a massacre. Whenever I heard on the news that there had been a killing spree, I would hold my breath, unable to relax until it was clear that it couldn't have been him."
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 a wonderful family and a beautiful home, he soon finds his life compromised when his father, a man Randolph 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 neighbor, Dieter Tiberius, the peculiar yet seemingly friendly man living in the basement apartment. As the Tiefenthalers settle into their home, they becoming increasingly disturbed as Dieter’s strange behavior turns malevolent. Randolph unravels the tale of Dieter’s harassment—the erotic letters he sends to Randolph's wife Rebecca, his spying, his accusations of child abuse, the police reports he filed against them. Finally, Randolph admits his of own feelings of desperation and helplessness, which ultimately led to his father’s intervention.
As Randolph plumbs the depths of his own uncertainty surrounding the murder—pondering fundamental questions about masculinity, violence, and the rule of law—his reliability is slowly but irrevocably called into doubt. The result is an unsettling meditation on middle-class privilege and "civilized life" that builds to a shocking conclusion.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of German author Kurbjuweit's unsettling U.S. debut, Randolph Tiefenthaler visits his unresponsive 77-year-old father, Hermann, in an institution that at first appears to be a care facility, but is in fact a prison. Hermann is serving time for the shooting death of Dieter Tiberius, Randolph's downstairs neighbor in Berlin. Randolph's narration shifts back in forth in time between his "happy" childhood, when he nevertheless feared being shot by his gun-loving father, and the recent past, when he fears what Dieter may do to his family. Dieter, initially solicitous to his new upstairs neighbors, begins leaving sexually suggestive writings addressed to Rebecca, Randolph's wife, and letters suggesting that Randolph and Rebecca are sexually abusing their children. Kurbjuweit generates suspense by making the reader wonder what exactly precipitates Dieter's killing, who is really responsible, and what the reader might do in the Tiefenthalers' place. The question of whether any of us is capable of murder is not new, and while Kurbjuweit's characters are also not unique, we care enough about these flawed people to keep turning the pages.