Berlin Cantata

A city that has lost one of its limbs and is receiving a miraculous gift, a little bump under the flesh, where the limb is just beginning to grow back. Thus does the American girl in Jeffrey Lewis s remarkable polyphonic novel describe Berlin and the remnant Jews, secret GDR Jews.Soviet Jews.Jews who d fled and come back with the victors, Jews who were lost mandarins now, Jews who d believed in the universality of man and maybe still did whom she finds at a Day of Atonement gathering in the eastern part of the city in a year soon after the Wall fell. Berlin Cantata deploys thirteen voices to tell a story not only of atonement, but of discovery, loss, identity, intrigue, mystery, insanity, sadomasochism and lies. At its centre is a country house owned successively by Jews, Nazis and Communists. In the country house, the American girl seeks her hidden past. In the girl, a local reporter seeks redemption. In the reporter, a false hero of the past seeks exposure. In the false hero, the American girl seeks a guide. And so it goes, a round of conspiracy and desire. Even as he describes his native city, the false hero describes the characters of Berlin Cantata: We dined on wreckage. We were not afraid to beg. We continued our long tradition of believing either in nothing or too much.