Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2021
368 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
An extraordinary family saga following a mother and two teens as they navigate a new life in East Germany.
Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Beate Haas, who defected from East Germany as a child, is notified that her parents' abandoned mansion is available for her to reclaim. Newly divorced and eager to escape her bleak life in upstate New York, where she moved as an adult, she arrives with her two teenagers to discover a city that has become an unrecognizable ghost town. The move fractures the siblings' close relationship, as Michael, free to be gay, takes to looting empty houses and partying with wannabe anarchists, while Adela, fascinated with the horrors of the Holocaust, buries herself in books and finds companionship in a previously unknown cousin. Over time, the town itself changes―from dismantled city to refugee haven and neo-Nazi hotbed, and eventually to a desirable seaside resort town. In the midst of that change, two episodes of devastating, fateful violence come to define the family forever.
Moving seamlessly through decades and between the thoughts and lives of several unforgettable characters, Thomas Grattan's spellbinding novel is a multigenerational epic that illuminates what it means to leave home, and what it means to return. Masterfully crafted with humor, gorgeous prose, and a powerful understanding of history and heritage, The Recent East is the profoundly affecting story of a family upended by displacement and loss, and the extraordinary debut of an empathetic and ambitious storyteller.
"Grattan's striking and surprising debut traces the parallel fates of a town in the former East Germany and a mother and her two children who struggle to make it their home...Grattan shines in his depiction of Kritzhagen as it evolves over the years from a place of refugee encampments and neo-Nazis to a chic vacation town. At turns funny and frightening, this is a moving, memorable portrait of a family and town in turmoil." - Publishers Weekly
"Grattan is a graceful writer and keen observer of family dynamics; the domestic themes, realist style, and emphasis on German culture can't help but recall Jonathan Franzen...[the plot] feels shapeless despite some dramatic flare-ups. The lassitude is somewhat intentional, though: When you're as disoriented as this clan is, Grattan suggests, there truly is no place like home. An ambitious, artful, and winding tale of a family in search of its moorings." - Kirkus Reviews
"A sprawling, captivating story of identity, displacement, family, and belonging, Thomas Grattan's debut novel is at turns heart-breaking and life-affirming, a necessary reminder of the different ways we can find, or create, a home for ourselves...a fascinating, clear-eyed view of the quickly changing landscape of Germany in the late 20th century...[the novel shows] the ways in which we are all of us, always, searching to better understand who we are, and how we fit into an ever-changing world." - Refinery29
"I fell in love with The Recent East, which is absolutely spellbinding. Thomas Grattan's writing on family, displacement, and queerness is so well wrought, intimate, and mesmerizing. This is an exquisite and profound novel. I will be pushing it in the hands of everyone I know." - Etaf Rum, author of A Woman is No Man
"Between life and death, as The Recent East would have it, we move 'from place to memory.' This remarkably humane first novel manages the quantum feat of restoring Cold War-era Germany to both categories at once. Its powerful intelligence and crystalline observations revive a set of memories - the late '60s, the early '90s - touched with a bygone world's Ostalgie. Yet in his enormous sensitivity, his feel for character, and his wry humor, Thomas Grattan also pins down precisely our own contentious place in history - our own riven and intimate selves. All in all: Ein Wunder!" - Garth Risk Hallberg, author of City on Fire
"Thomas Grattan explores the complex forces at work within families, forces that can both impede and facilitate the formation of individual identity. In this multi-generational, multi-continent journey, the threads of a family fray and interweave against the backdrop of immigration and political change, yielding moments of profound isolation and profound intimacy. Grattan has an enthralling voice and a deep understanding of the subtleties of human relationships. The Recent East is a bold and tender debut." - Helen Phillips, author of The Need
This information about The Recent East 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.
Thomas Grattan's short fiction has appeared in several publications, including One Story, Slice, and The Colorado Review, has been shortlisted for a Pushcart Prize, and was listed as a notable story in Best American Short Stories. The Recent East is his debut novel. He has an MFA in Fiction Writing from Brooklyn College and has taught middle school English for more than a decade. He lives in New York City.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
