Dark Company

Description

Thomas, den Binnenschiffer, hat es von den Flüssen in die niedersächsische Provinz verschlagen, wo das Land weit ist und der Himmel tief hängt. In zehn Regennächten erinnert er sich an phantastische Begebenheiten, an Stationen seiner abenteuerlichen Reise, auf die ihn das Leben geschickt hat. Immer wieder ist er einer Gruppe von schwarzgekleideten Leuten begegnet, deren Auftauchen Unheil und Katastrophen ankündigt, eben jener Dunklen Gesellschaft, von der ihn schon sein Großvater gewarnt hat. Jedes Kapitel spielt zu einer anderen Zeit, an einem anderen Ort – Berlin, London, New York, Rom, Wien, in einer brandenburgischen Kleinstadt an der östlichen Spree – und entfaltet eine magische Spannung und apokalyptische Suggestivkraft, eine immer wieder ins Magisch-Surreale hinübergleitende Welt.

Description

“Of course I had to end up here . . .” Over ten rainy nights, Thomas, an ex-bargeman who used to be skipper of his own boat, walks the muddy fields of the landlocked German interior and remembers the events that lost him his home, his boat, and his livelihood: his apprenticeship in the cold halls of the Royal Naval College in London; the dangers of the mean streets and waterfront of New York in the 1970s, and Poland under martial law; Germany after the reunification, when for a year or so it seemed that the whole country drifted rudderless, drawn by the current of history to who knows where. In this novel from Gert Loschütz,Thomas remembers childhood, his first love, and the warnings of his grandfather: Beware the dark company! This mysterious band of men and women dressed in black cast a shadow over his story, as he wrestles with the secrets, the unplumbed depths of his soul, the hazards lurking below a seemingly placid surface, and throughout it all, the rain, falling night after night. Dark Company is a superb example of a distinctly German tradition in weird fiction which claims its roots in Kafka and Herbert Rosendorfer.

Subjects

Series Statement

• The German List

Other Editions

• Dark Company: A Novel In Ten Rainy NightsHardcoverSeagull Books
• Dunkle GesellschaftHardcoverFrankfurter Verlagsanstalt2005-09-01
• Dark CompanyPaperbackSeagull Books2021-04-24
• Dunkle GesellschaftPaperbackPiper Taschenbuch