Fiction | Fiction
Against the World
Jan Brandt
© Seagull Books
Set in the East Frisia region of Germany in the mid-1970s, this novel tells the story of the nominal heir to a drugstore dynasty, and his struggle to free himself from the violence of small-town life. A delicate, secretive boy with too much imagination and too few opportunities, Daniel Kuper becomes the target of outrage and fear when strange phenomena convulse the town: snowfall in summer, inexplicable corn circles, a dead boy under the wheels of a train, swastikas crudely daubed on walls. Fingers point, and they single out Kuper. Jan Brandt’s debut is an epic account of growing up an outsider.