Salonkultur - Der Literarische Salon - Berlin

Gelaufene Veranstaltung

Donnerstag, 06. Juni 2019 um 20.30 Uhr
in der Z-BAR

Deutschlandpremiere : Lesung und Gespräch in englischer Sprache

"Disposable Man" von und mit dem Autor Michael Levitin (USA) (Spuyten Duyvil, January 2019)

German premiere: Michael Levitin (USA) reads from his debut novel "Disposable Man" (Spuyten Duyvil, January 2019)

“Let me begin by telling you about the time my great aunt Josephine wrote a postcard to Albert Einstein asking him to save her life.” Thus begins this debut novel about American journalist Max Krumm, a grandson of Holocaust survivors who has returned to his ancestral city of Berlin to bury the ghosts that still haunt him. A multigenerational novel woven into the backdrop of revolutionary Russia and Nazi Europe, "Disposable Man" tackles enduring themes of loss, male identity and the search for meaning. Levitin’s story about one man’s attempt to come to terms with history is also a story about modern men in search of themselves. Holding up a mirror to Gen X and millennials, it explores today’s generation of stalled, disposable men as it follows Krumm on a rambling journey east through Poland into Lithuania where he attempts to uncover a family secret and, in the process, regains his manhood.

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REVIEWS

Disposable Man is a compelling male manifesto, an elegy to lost purpose and grip—stunning, angry, smart, funny, and uncomfortably precise. From the book’s spectacular opening pages to the raw bittersweet ending, Levitin’s remarkable post-millennial novel bristles with restless speculation about male identity in the #MeToo milieu... an astringent perspective on post-feminism, late capitalism, global unemployment, and the overall ennui of males who have yet to find traction in a chaotic Zeitgeist. A tour de force, crackling with humor and defiance, the voice of Disposable Man is intimate and vivid as Levitin spins the saga of one man’s journey to set the family record straight.
Christina Waters · Culture writer for Good Times Santa Cruz

This picaresque novel allows us to explore not only Eastern Europe but gives us entrée into Berlin’s expatriate scene and tenders a witty sociological analysis of the city’s bourgeois-bohemians that is worth the price of admission. Michael Levitin, a journalist by trade and former Berlin resident, knows this turf well. This is an insightful, entertaining and multi-faceted work with something on offer for everyone.
Kevin McAleer · Author of Errol Flynn: An Epic Life and the novels Surferboy and Berlin Tango

This remarkable novel about a young man’s search for the continuity of his portable life, among the ruins of a murdered past and in the face of a blank future, is rich with delights, insights, warranted sadness, and a longing to make sense of history.
Todd Gitlin · Author of The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage and the novel Undying

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PRESS REVIEWS

Beautifully written with vibrant descriptions of people and places and lots and lots of history – both global and personal.
San Jose Mercury News

The subject of Michael Levitin's first novel is not just the 'disposability' of man as declared by its title, but his displacement... Berlin of now supplanting Paris of 'The Sun Also Rises' and Gertrude Stein's 'Lost Generation'... a touch of Mark Twain to it, even Whitman; the Jacks, London and Kerouac, come to kind too.
Review 31

For Max, Berlin constitutes a border between what he's comfortable with and what he's fascinated by and afraid of – all the treasures of his ancestors' past. Levitin's debut novel is a classic, compelling and hilariously fun identity quest... a nod toward the great European tradition, so a bit of German writers and a lot of Philip Roth.
Fiction Writers Review