Review by Booklist Review
This clever novel tells the story of how curried sausage (a popular German street food) was created. The narrator is convinced that the delicacy was invented in his native Hamburg sometime during or after World War II, not in Berlin in the 1950s, as is commonly believed. His faint memories from childhood lead him to Lena Bruckner, the curried-sausage street vendor of his youth. He finds her living in a retirement home, and through a series of interviews, she slowly reveals the story behind the creation of curried sausage. And what a story it is! Weaving wartime intrigue, clandestine love affairs, black-market subterfuge, and life during the Nazi era, Lena's story traces the development of the sausage while simultaneously mapping the effects of such diverse elements as war, love, and abandonment on the human spirit. A best-seller in Germany, this highly entertaining, powerful work will dazzle American readers. --Kathleen Hughes
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The ubiquitous German curbside fare is found to have origins in a furtive romance. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In Timm's hands (Headhunter, 1993, etc.), how curried sausage became a popular street food makes for a perfectly charming novel that looks back at the end of WW II. It's a tall--and a humble--tale, involving love, war, resourcefulness, trickery, and an accident on the stairs, all made believable by the skillful Timm and his unnamed narrator, who makes his way to a retirement home to call on one Lena Brücker, whom he fondly remembers from his Hamburg childhood as having operated a food-stand selling curried sausages. Was this same Lena Brücker really the first inventer of the dish? Over seven days and seven visits from our narrator, the now-aged Mrs. Brücker (like Homer, she's become a blind creator, even knitting a sweater as she spins her yarn) tells her wonderful story, not the least of it having to do with her 27-day romance (starting April 29th, 1945) with a 24- year-old naval NCO named Bremer, whom she meets at the movies one rainy evening. After spending the night together in her apartment (her husband is a two-timer and cad, and, besides, he's gone), Mrs. Brücker (she's 40) suggests, putting it very simply, that the young man--well, could stay for a while. Desperate for manpower at war's end, the Germans have transferred Bremer to anti-tank duty and certain death, both of which he avoids by staying with the warm, generous, resourceful Mrs. Brücker. And as for the rest? Suffice it to say that, among other things, Mrs. Brücker is a good cook (a canteen manager, she's wizardly at rounding up scarce food); that her lust for life and unerring sense of right and wrong put her somewhere between the Wife of Bath and Anna Magnani; and that things work out as they sometimes do--in ways, this time, that you might feel like weeping for. A small, perfect feast: full of life, heart, spirit, and laughter, all seasoned delicately with sorrow and hope.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
