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Title details for The Frog in the Throat by Markus Werner - Wait list

The Frog in the Throat

by Markus Werner
Michael Hofmann
ebook
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Wait time: About 2 weeks
In a small town in Switzerland, Franz—ex-clergyman, ex-husband, current counselor of locals at loose ends— is being haunted by his recently deceased father, Klement. In life, Franz was caught cheating on his wife and defrocked, after which Klement never spoke to him again. In death, Klement visits his son in the form of a frog in the throat, choking him, yes, but also giving voice to an old dairy farmer devoted to the old ways, forever railing against his son and the whole modern mess he represents.

The same can be said of this novel, in which these two voices clash, harmonize, and ultimately offer up all the mutual recognition and incomprehension that is family life. A miniature tragicomic masterpiece, Markus Werner’s second novel is as bursting with life as a Dickens novel: not only Franz’s high-strung shenanigans and the father’s settled life among the cattle, but the lives of his sister and brother and the land all around.
As in all of Werner’s work, the world looks grim (“I sit around, I drink, I brood, I pat myself down for flaws and find many and each evening I say: Starting tomorrow
I’m going to get a grip on myself”) but never less than comic—a view captured marvelously in Michael Hofmann’s vivid translation.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 4, 2025

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781681379135

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781681379135
      • File size: 851 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      February 25, 2025
      Any title translator Michael Hofmann turns his attention to is worth picking up. The second novel by acclaimed Swiss novelist Werner (1944-2016) is just the sort of book Hofmann was born to render into English. Its time-honored subject, with a twist, is how the sins of the father have been visited on the son. Specifically, how Klemens Thalmann, the dead father and former dairy farmer, returns as a frog to choke his son, Franz, a divorced ex-clergyman, for a few days each month, leaving Franz hoarse and laceratingly self-reflective. One marvels at the beauty of the sentences, and struggles with the unremitting bleakness. While nothing like the milk of human kindness flows here, there's plenty of pity, beauty, and fear. Franz, before his fall: "I am still soft with sleep. I feel doubled, wearing your face, freckled wife. Of course, the birds are singing. Of course, the cat is cleaning herself. And if I had felt empty, I should have been deeply envious of her warm fur."

      COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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