Author

Publication

1999 - Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York, New York (State)

Language

English

Word Count

63,750 words, Guess

Page Count

255 pages

Identifiers

and 2 more
  • LibraryThing525249
  • Goodreads1388986

Classifications

  • DDC821
  • LCCPR9619.3.M83 F74 1999

Description

When German-Australian sailor Friedrich "Fredy" Boettcher is shanghied aboard a German Navy battleship at the outbreak of World War I, the sight of frenzied mobs burning Armenian women to death in Turkey causes him, through moral shock, to lose his sense of touch. This mysterious disability, which he knows he must hide, is both protection and curse during much of his life, as he orbits the high horror and low humor of a catastrophic age. Told in blue-collar English that regains freshness by eschewing the mind-set of literary language, Fredy's picaresque life - as, perhaps, the only Nordic Superman ever - is deep-dyed in layers of irony and attains a mind-inverting resolution.

Subjects

Genres

  • Poetry.

Other Editions

  • Fredy NeptuneFarrar, Straus, and Giroux1999

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