Jan Peter Bremer

The situation appears to be common and everyone has heard from someone that this is what happens. The building where you rent an apartment is sold and its long–established residents are driven out of the house by intimidating building activities. The luxuriously renovated flats are taken over by well–heeled new tenants. Gentrification is what they call it. You see it everywhere, especially in Berlin. Jan Peter Bremer’s new novel is based on precisely this constellation. As one might expect from him, however, Bremer did not make it into a novel about the social phenomenon, but has spun the material into something quite idiosyncratically bizarre. (…) The book could be read as an expression of what turbocapitalism can do to individuals, but such a view would be inadequate. The protagonist is a writer who is going through a creative crisis and is suffering from writer’s block. But that is not the only problem. An American investor has just bought the house, at least that is what they say. Shortly afterwards, workmen move into the apartment below the one where the writer lives with his wife, children and dog. They rip out the carpets, tear down the walls and then disappear, leaving behind a building site.

Christoph Schröder: „Die Angst in der Badewanne“
© die tageszeitung, 3 September 2011