Novel set in Berlin - a quintessential read

The Innocent by Ian McEwan set in Berlin

The blogpost is now on our new website and you can find it here

GERMANY - a destructive mother-daughter relationship

"Magda is a portrayal of a destructive  mother-daughter relationship over three generations' Meike Ziervogel

This blogpost can now be found on the new TripFiction website here

Tina for the TripFiction Team

- The Observer’s Books of the Year
- Shortlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize
- Featured on BBC Radio 4 – Woman’s Hour

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BERLIN Fabrizio Collini goes to trial

The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach set in Berlin

The review can now be found on the new TripFiction website here.

All that Jazz set around the world

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan set in Germany and France

This book tells the story of three black jazz musicians who find themselves in Berlin at the beginning of the Second World War. They manage to escape to Paris where they make contact with Louis Armstrong, but their relief is short lived as France declares itself at war too. Our narrator Sid and his childhood friend Chip are American and manage to get visas to return, but the young genius among them ‘the kid’ Hieronymous Falk is a black half German and the friends can’t leave him.

The books jumps back and forward in time between the 40’s and the 90’s, tantalisingly giving you bits of the story, but never everything until the end. It has to be one of the most powerful descriptions of the Paris Occupation I have ever read, as well as being a story of the ups and downs of friendship, the good natured banter over the years but also the darker side of jealousy and betrayal. It was very different to my usual uplifting and lighthearted books set in France, but certainly something that made me think. With lots of themes running through the book, jazz music, war, race and friendship it is quite full and complex too.

I will admit that it took me a while to become comfortable with the way this novel is written. Told through the voice of Sid it is written in a black slang dialect that didn’t flow in my head the way English does, but did make for a far more realistic read.

This book is published by Serpent’s Tail and available in both paperback and ebook. The link to Amazon can be found by clicking on the book cover. 

A terrific thank you from all of us at TripFiction to our Guest Blogger Jacqui Brown who writes on her own blog about her life in France and also reviews novels set in the country.


And following on from the jazz theme we have brought together a few of our favourite novels  - so many to choose from - that bring this wonderful musical world and era to life. Just click on the covers to find out more:





Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje set in New Orleans
Based on the life of cornet player Buddy Bolden, one of the legendary jazz pioneers of turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans, Coming Through Slaughter is an extraordinary recreation of a remarkable musical life and a tragic conclusion. Through a collage of memoirs, interviews, imaginary conversations and monologues, Ondaatje builds a picture of a man who would work by day at a barber shop and by night unleash his talent to wild audiences who had never experienced such playing. But Buddy was also playing the field with two women, and inside his head was a ticking time-bomb which he was unable to stop.







But Beautiful by Geoff Dyer set in USA
Having been absolutely transported to Venice and Varanasi in Geoff Dyer's book Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi we were pleased to find this wonderfully acclaimed novel that really brings the jazz era to life.Lester Young fading away in a hotel room; Charles Mingus storming down the streets of New York on a too-small bicycle; Thelonius Monk creating his own private language on the piano...In eight poetically charged vignettes, Geoff Dyer skilfully evokes the embattled lives of the players who shaped modern jazz. He draws on photos and anecdotes, but music is the driving force of But Beautiful and Dyer brings it to life in luminescent and wildly metaphoric prose that mirrors the quirks, eccentricity, and brilliance of each musician's style.





The Jazz Flower by Vee Williams Garcia set in Washington DC, Paris, NYC
Rosa Johnson Stills grows and blooms into a beautiful mocha-hued jazz singer in 1930s and '40s Washington, D.C. During those years, Rosa challenges her light-skinned grandmother, Lilly, who low rates her dark skin color and her jazz dream. Rosa also fights her rival, socialite Iris Haywood, in an endless effort to possess her first love, Attorney Alan Covington. Because of a long-ago pact their families made, Alan is pledged to Iris. And Iris will never let him go. Eventually, Rosa relocates to New York City to take a singing job at The Blue Phoenix nightclub and to try to forget Alan. In New York, Rosa dates Jackson Parker, a racketeer. But Alan is in her arms whenever he's in New York on business ─ even after he and Iris are married. Parker threatens to kill Rosa if he catches her with another man. Set in the Swing and Bebop eras of jazz music, The Jazz Flower unfolds prejudice, obsession, and murder, as it transports readers from D.C. to New York, to Paris, France, on its way to a riveting conclusion.




Blood Count by Reggie Nadelson set in New York
In New York's Harlem, every street is steeped in history, and the music of jazz legends plays in the memories of its residents. Artie Cohen could feel at home here - if he wasn't on the trail of a killer intent on erasing the past...An elderly Russian woman is found dead in her apartment, and Cohen finds himself in the centre of a violent debate between city developers and an older generation of Harlem tenants. Not to mention the tensions between himself, his old girlfriend, and her new, younger lover. Meanwhile someone in these once-violent streets is intent on hauling Harlem into the twenty-first century, no matter what it takes...





Jazz by Toni Morrison set in Harlem, NYC
Joe Trace - in his fifties, door-to-door salesman of beauty products, erstwhile devoted husband - shoots to death his lover of three months, impetuous, eighteen-year-old Dorcas. At the funeral, his determined, hard-working wife, Violet - who is given to stumbling into dark mental cracks - tries with a knife to disfigure the corpse. Jazz is the story of a triangle of passion, jealousy, murder and redemption, of sex and spirituality, of slavery and liberation, country and city, of being male and female, African American, and above all being human.

Oh, Play That Thing by Roddy Doyle set in NYC and Chicago
It's 1924, and New York is the centre of the universe. Henry Smart, on the run from Dublin, falls on his feet. He is a handsome man with a sandwich board, behind which he stashes hooch for the speakeasies of the Lower East Side. He catches the attention of the mobsters who run the district and soon there are eyes on his back and men in the shadows. It is time to leave, for another America...Chicago is wild and new, and newest of all is the music. Furious, wild, happy music played by a man with a trumpet and bleeding lips called Louis Armstrong. His music is everywhere, coming from every open door, every phonograph. But Armstrong is a prisoner of his colour; there are places a black man cannot go, things he cannot do. Armstrong needs a man, a white man, and the man he chooses is Henry Smart.

Twelve Bar Blues by Patrick Neate set in NYC,  Africa,  New Orleans & Chicago
Spanning three continents and two centuries, Twelve Bar Blues is an epic tale of fate, family, friendship and jazz. At its heart is Lick Holden, a young jazz musician, who sets New Orleans on fire with his cornet at the beginning of the last century. But Lick's passion is to find his lost step-sister and that's a journey that leads him to a place he can call 'home'. Meanwhile, at the other end of the century, we find Sylvia, an English prostitute, and Jim, a young drifter. They're in search of Sylvia's past, lost somewhere in the mists of the Louisiana bayou. Patrick Neate has written a story that straddles time and space, love and friendship, roots and pilgrimage and everything between. Poignant and hilarious, it will hook you - like a favourite tune - till the end.

Czechmate: The Spy who Played Jazz by Bill Moody set in Prague
The year is 1968. The liberal reforms of Czechoslovakia's new leader, Alexander Dubcek, have outraged the Kremlin and now, 250,000 Warsaw Pact forces are amassed on the borders. For American intelligence, the situation is worsened when their prime source, Josef Blaha, threatens to cut them off unless one demand is met: a totally safe contact. For CIA veteran, Alan Curtis, jazz musician Gene Williams seems the ideal choice. His invitation to the Prague Jazz festival gives him perfect cover and access to Prague. But Williams is a musician, not a spy and has other ideas that force Curtis to resort to blackmail to get the young musician to accept what Curtis calls a simple pickup and delivery. It starts to go wrong when Williams finds Blaha murdered by the KGB and he's left to unravel the puzzle on his own. What he finds is even more than Curtis bargained for. With the help of Blaha's beautiful granddaughter Lena, Williams races against time to warn Dubcek of the impending invasion and uncover a traitor in the US Embassy.

And All That Madness by Joan Merrill set in NYC
When the New York Jazz Society acquires a fifty-year old letter from Georgia Valentine, questions arise over the legendary vocalist's death. Did she give herself a fatal dose of heroin, as the original investigators ruled, or did someone kill her? And if it was murder, what was the motive? Casey moves her operation from San Francisco to New York to investigate the cold case, questioning Georgia's musician friends, her widower, a drug dealer, a Broadway actress, a mafia boss and the authorities who declared the death a suicide. This quest takes Casey to New York's most venerable jazz clubs, a Harlem nursing home, a mob-owned Italian restaurant, a lesbian bar and One Police Plaza, home of the NYPD. She joins forces with an attractive detective from the Organized Crime unit, and, as the case progresses, so does their relationship. With no shortage of suspects, Casey ultimately uncovers evidence revealing a surprising killer.

Not a definitive list by any means! Share your favourite novels with a jazz theme in our Comments Box

Mussels and MUCH more (BERLIN)

The Mussel Feat by Birgit VanderBeke

This post now appears on the new TripFiction website, here plus interview with the founder of the publisher, Peirene Press

Our novel selection for BERLIN

After reading Ben Elton's extraordinarily good novel "Two Brothers" set in Berlin we felt inspired to bring together several top reads which we feel will help understand how Berlin, over the course of the 20th century, came to be what it is today. The city has truly been at the heart of a roller coaster ride, experiencing 2 wars, mass destruction, terrible persecution of minorities, unrest, massive inflation, pomp and partition. And if you are about to visit the city, then these novels will echo with the footsteps of past generations: imagine what it was like walking under the Brandenburg Gate in the build-up to WW2, how full of life the decadent Berlin of the 20s was and how difficult it must have been for many folk living in the divided city until 1989. Enjoy our choices.


Two Brothers by Ben Elton - It is 1920 and this is the story of two boys who became brothers but who had different biological parents; and how the issue of birth in Germany came to mean so much in the build up to the Second World War. It is poignantly and realistically told, in modern parlance, which I thought would grate, but actually adds to the immediacy of the story. You can hear the footsteps on the streets of Berlin and feel the creep factor of oppression, torment and death. As a reader I felt I was there with the two brothers Ottsy and Paulus, and their Saturday gang made up of Silke and Dagmar. In tandem, as they grow up, the National Socialists are also growing - they were founded on the day of the birth of the boys, 24 Feburary 1920.


It is truly deserving of 5* for both atmosphere and story and setting; should I mention the two things that I thought weren't quite right? One was - a little bottle of olive oil was taken on a picnic at the Wannsee, and am not sure that would have been right for the period...I think olive oil was only used medicinally and not for culinary purposes in those days; and the other, attending a parade of the Freikorps at the Brandenburg Gate the parents, Wolfgang and Frieda have their little babies in a buggy. A commotion starts and Wolfgang commands that they remove the babies from the buggy for fear of being trampled underfoot, and raise the babies above their heads and run (nah, you wouldn't do that, you would cradle them to your chest to protect them). Forget my nit picking, though, it's a truly top read!
(Alexandrine Orff for TripFiction)


The Luminous Life of Lily Aphrodite by Beatrice Colin -  As the clock chimed the turn of the twentieth century, Lilly Nelly Aphrodite took her first breath. Born to a cabaret dancer and soon orphaned in a scandalous double murder, Lilly finds refuge at a Catholic orphanage, coming under the wing of the, at times, severe Sister August, the first in a string of lost loves.  There she meets Hanne Schmidt, a teen prostitute, and forms a bond that will last them through tumultuous love affairs, disastrous marriages, and destitution during the First World War and the subsequent economic collapse. As the century progresses, Lilly and Hanne move from the tawdry glamour of the tingle-tangle nightclubs to the shadow world of health films before Lilly finds success and stardom in the new medium of motion pictures and ultimately falls in love with a man whose fate could cost her everything she has worked for or help her discover her true self.

And our final choice to round off the the 20th century in this ever changing city is The Moment by Douglas Kennedy. Thomas Nesbitt is a divorced writer in the midst of a rueful middle age. Living a very private life in Maine, in touch only with his daughter and still trying to recover from the end of a long marriage, his solitude is disrupted one wintry morning by the arrival of a box that is postmarked Berlin. The name on the box—Dussmann—unsettles him completely, for it belongs to the woman with whom he had an intense love affair twenty-six years ago in Berlin at a time when the city was cleaved in two and personal and political allegiances were frequently haunted by the deep shadows of the Cold War.

And our final suggestion to complement any trip to the German capital is the city-Lit Berlin guide, a compilation of authors who bring the city to life through words. Another wonderful way to soak up the atmosphere...
‘Brilliant … the best way to get under the skin of a city. The perfect read for travellers and book lovers of all ages’ Kate Mosse, best-selling author of Labyrinth





There are so many novels set in Berlin - please do share with us in the Comments Box the books that you feel really evoke the feel of city both past and present. And we feature plenty more novels set in Berlin here- if we don't feature your favourite novel, let us know. 

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