Off Paradise
Stories
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Martin, the central character of Hart Wegner’s powerful short-story cycle, is a middle-aged German emigre who has found a home, of sorts, in the isolated and often surreal setting of contemporary Las Vegas. Exiled at the end of World War II with his parents from their beloved Silesia, the family struggles to come to terms with the turmoil of history and memory while they cope with the challenges of assimilation in an alien setting.
In stories that range from the Nevada desert to the lost world of prewar Silesia, Wegner explores, through the perspectives of Martin, his aging parents, and their small circle of fellow emigres, the intricate tapestry of the exile experience--childhood recollections of the vast and fertile plains of East Germany and the shelter of comfortable and loving homes, memories of the horrors of war, the guilt and terror and despair of displacement, the frustrations of finding one’s way in a new and alien culture, the precious ties of family and longtime friendship. And most of all, loss--the loss of home; of an identity formed by an ancient language, the details of a shared culture, and a common sense of past and of future; of loved ones; and finally, and most tragically, of memory itself.
Wegner’s characters are vividly and bravely human, bitter, tender, despairing, and full of hope. And ever-seeking a new home, a new place in which to belong after their long sojourn in the wilderness. The inner world of the exile has never been examined with such sympathy, such clarity, or such eloquence.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The eloquent, semiautobiographical stories in Wegner's second collection (after Houses of Ivory) explore the everyday struggles and inner turmoils of an East German family coming to terms with life in present-day Las Vegas, Nev. The nine connected stories tell of Martin and his parents' exile from Silesia, Germany, at the end of World War II, when the region was given to Poland. Martin was 13 when the war ended, and he still feels guilt at the memory of events over which he had no control. In ordinary conversations at meals, during holidays or standing around a swimming pool, the characters exchange tales spanning the middle of the 20th century. Their recollections movingly recount the dislocation and quiet suffering of millions of Germans during and after the war. In the title story, Martin's childhood friend Lottel and her husband come for a visit and Lottel tries to recreate a favorite meal from the old country using ingredients purchased in a supermarket, but the meat and red cabbage dish proves disappointing: "True, they were happy being together at the same table after a half century away from Silesia, but the food that was to have reminded them of home didn't have the flavor of the past." Throughout, the book details near unimaginable losses of identities, of homelands, of loved ones. The characters uneasily accept their exile status while fighting to preserve the memories both good and bad of the past. "I can't just slip into a new life as if I were a confidence man gluing on a fake mustache," Martin remarks. Despite the melancholy, this collection of measured, haunting stories is buoyed by underlying themes of survival and hope.
