Description
The precisions of science, the wild variance of lust, the catharsis of confession and the fear of failure—these are things that happen in The Glass Room.
High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a wonder of steel, glass and onyx built specially for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile.
But the radiant honesty of the 1930s that the house, with its unique Glass Room, seems to engender quickly tarnishes as the storm clouds of World War II gather; eventually the family must flee, accompanied by Viktor's lover and her child.
Yet the house's story is far from over, and as it passes from hand to hand, from Czech to Russian, both the best and the worst of the history of Eastern Europe become somehow embodied and perhaps emboldened within the beautiful and austere surfaces and planes so carefully designed, until events come full circle.
Cool. Balanced. Modern.
Endorsements
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize