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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionseBook editionsThis Must Be the Placeby Anna Winger
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A charming and undeniably powerful debut novel set in Berlin about the friendship between a fading actor and a young married American woman who are both learning to live with the past. Walter Baum has one of the most famous voices in Germany, if no longer a famous face. A former television star, h‛s been dubbing Tom Cruis‛s lines into German for fifteen years, since he returned from a failed attempt to make it as an actor in Hollywood. Now he finds himself nearing forty, alone and adrift. In the apartment just below him, a young American woman named Hope is slipping further and further into herself. Having fled New York a month earlier to join her workaholic husband in Berlin, she finds herself more isolated than ever and unable to cope with the sense of foreboding created by the haunted city around her and the painful memories from the one she just left. These two broken people form an unlikely friendship, at first out of loneliness, but then deepening out of genuine affinity. They are finally forced to reveal their secrets and examine their pasts, and, as a pair, they explore how to reconcile their hopes for the future with the ache of history that lingers, permanently, beneath the surface. Funny, insightful, and moving, This Must Be the Place is an expertly crafted debut novel about the events that bind us together and the friendships that make and remake us whole. Review:"In Winger's touching and emotionally turbulent debut, the fantasy of new beginnings gives way to a persistent sense of haunted — but oddly comforting — history. Set in Berlin in the late fall of 2001, the novel focuses on the overlapping stories of grieving American expat Hope and has-been minor German celebrity Walter, who's dreaming of a new career in Hollywood. Hope recently suffered a late-term miscarriage and has reluctantly joined her economist husband in Berlin despite a widening gulf between them and her crippling depression. Walter's teenage heartthrob status has withered with age, and now he dubs American films into German. The friendship that blooms between them raises issues about personal and national identity, though their coming together is a bit too neat, as are the many oversimplifications of Americans and Germans that pepper the narrative. The real drama arises between the cities of New York and Berlin; both cities, like Hope and Walter, bear a profound survivor's guilt: the war, the wall and the towers overwhelm individual sorrows. There are a few clunky moments, but the elegant ending and confident storytelling are redeeming." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) About the AuthorAnna Winger grew up in Kenya, Massachusetts, and Mexico as the daughter of Harvard anthropologists. Today she is a professional photographer and the producer of NPR Worldwid‛s“Berlin Stories” as well as a writer who has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, among other publications. She is a graduate of Columbia University. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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