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by Takis Würger (author), Charlotte Collins (translator)
A blistering, timely, and gripping novel set at Cambridge University, centering around an all-male dining club for the most privileged and wealthy young men at Cambridge and following an outsider who exposes the dark secrets of this group, the Pitt Club.
As a boy, Hans Stichler enjoys a fable-like childhood among the rolling hills and forests of North Germany, living an idyll that seems uninterruptable. A visit from Hans's ailing English aunt Alex, who comes to stay for an entire summer, has a profound effect on the young Hans, all the more so when she invites him to come to university at Cambridge, where she teaches art history. Alex will ensure his application to St. John's College is accepted, but in return he must help her investigate an elite university club of young aristocrats and wealthy social climbers, the Pitt Club. The club has existed at Cambridge for centuries, its long legacy of tradition and privilege largely unquestioned.
As Hans makes his best efforts to prove club material and infiltrate its ranks, including testing his mettle in the boxing ring, he is drawn into a world of extravagance, debauchery, and macho solidarity. And when he falls in love with fellow student Charlotte, he sees a potential new life of upper-class sophistication opening up to him. But there are secrets in the club's history, as well as in its present - and Hans soon finds himself in the inner sanctum of what proves to be an increasingly dangerous institution, forced to grapple with the notion that sometimes one must do wrong to do right.
"Though it moves at a good pace, the novel is contrived in its depiction of upper-class snobbism, hypocrisy, and corruption, resulting in a diverting if thin story." - Publishers Weekly
"A timely, beautifully paced novel about class and prestige in the #MeToo era ... There is much to dissect in this concise and dramatic tale." - Booklist
"A sparse, cutting debut in which violence begets violence begets healing." - Kirkus
"Distinguished German journalist Würger, who broke some bones boxing for a year at Cambridge, offers a powerful and provoking story." - Library Journal
"Filled with love, sorrow, and beauty - from the cover to the final sentence." - Elle (Germany)
"The Club describes the fine distinctions of class society as shrewdly and entertainingly as it talks about violent rituals at an English university ... A truly great book." - Denis Scheck, ARD (Germany)
"A wonderful book. The tone is almost fable-like, but the themes are painfully contemporary." - Brigitte (Germany)
"Würger artfully circles the dark secret of the university campus ... His language is so transparent that the story is never weighed down with a sense of its significance ... Skillfully choreographed." - Die Zeit (Germany)
"An enthralling book." - Welt am Sonntag (Germany)
"Würger writes about sex and crime in the noble Cambridge Pitt Club―without sentimentality but with both gentleness and an understanding of the zeitgeist." - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany)
"The fast-moving plot leaves the reader holding their breath." - Hamburger Morgenpost (Germany)
"Refined, gripping, and elegant all at once. Würger's language is precise and impressive in its clarity and concision." - Weser-Kurier (Germany)
"A cunning, sinuous tale, Takis Würger's The Club is so wildly entertaining that, at first, it's easy to miss its deeper mysteries. But, as it unfolds, brutal truths about class and gender and violence emerge, take hold and shudder through the novel's final pages." - Megan Abbott, best-selling author of Give Me Your Hand and You Will Know Me
"The Club, Takis Würger's exquisite debut, is a novel as rare as a phoenix, a story both beautifully told and white-knuckle thrilling. A tale of pain, privilege and revenge, The Club reads like something both mythical and modern, a fable whose pages demand to be turned." - Christopher J. Yates, author of Black Chalk and Grist Mill Road
"Real writers are few and far between. I believe that Takis Würger is one of them." - Thomas Glavinic, author of Night Work
This information about The Club was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Takis Würger is a reporter working for the German news magazine Der Spiegel. He studied Human, Social, and Political Science at St. John's College Cambridge for a year before dropping out. During this time, he boxed for the University, broke two ribs and his hand, and became a member of the Adonians, the Hawks' Club, and the Pitt Club. Named one of Medium's "Top 30 Journalists under 30," alongside other accolades, Würger's work as a journalist has taken him to Afghanistan, Libya, Mexico, and Ukraine. The Club, which won the lit.Cologne debut prize and has become a runaway bestseller in Germany, is his first novel.
Charlotte Collins studied English at Cambridge University. She worked as an actor and radio journalist in both Germany and the U.K. before becoming a literary translator. She is best known for her translation of International Booker shortlisted Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life and was the recipient of the Helen & Kurt Wolff's Translator's Prize in 2017.
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