The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES Christoph Fischer's Book: THE LUCK OF THE WEISSENSTEINERS
His book is on the short list for an award with Indie Author Land. The voting is still going on for The 50 Self-Published Books Worth Reading (2013/14): Literary. To participate, click here.
The Luck of the Weissensteiners
The Three Nations Trilogy - Volume 1
Author: Christoph Fischer
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In the sleepy town of Bratislava in 1933 a romantic girl falls for a bookseller from Berlin. Greta Weissensteiner, daughter of a Jewish weaver, slowly settles in with the Winkelmeier clan just as the developments in Germany start to make waves in Europe. The political climate in the multifaceted cultural jigsaw puzzle of disintegrating Czechoslovakia becomes more complex and affects relations between the couple and the families.
The story follows their lot through the war with its predictable and also its unexpected turns and events and the equally hard times after. From the moment that Greta Weissensteiner enters the bookstore where Wilhelm Winkelmeier works, and entrances him with her good looks and serious ways, I was hooked. But this is no ordinary romance; in tact it is not a romance at all, but a powerful, often sad, Holocaust story.
What makes The Luck of the Weissensteiners so extraordinary is the chance Christoph Fischer gives his readers to consider the many different people who were never in concentration camps, never in the military, yet who nonetheless had their own indelible Holocaust experiences.
Set in the fascinating area of Bratislava, this is a wide-ranging, historically accurate exploration of the connections between social location, personal integrity and, as the title says, luck. I cared about every one of this novel's characters and continued to think about them long after I'd finished reading. -- Andrea Steiner, University of California Santa Cruz
The Luck of the Weissensteiners is an epic saga set in wartime Eastern Europe. It follows the lives of two families - one Jewish, one Catholic - and their entwined survival amidst the backdrop of the second world war; first the fascist then the communist invasion and occupation of Slovakia, and the horror of the consequences of war. The reader is transported to a world of deception, fear, distrust and betrayal, alongside enduring love and family drama. The characters are vividly painted in the mind of the reader as we follow their journey across Europe at a time of unimaginable challenge and trauma. Weissensteiners is a magnificent tale of human survival. I wish I hadn't read it already so that I may repeat the pleasure of discovering and becoming lost in the story once again.
Excerpt:
A few hours after midnight, Jonah was escorted to one of the guest rooms by a servant. Never in his life had he spent a night in a larger or more luxurious room. He wondered if this was part of the special treatment the Countess had intended for him in order to entice him into her little circle or whether all of the guest rooms had such remarkable size and décor. If this was part of a strategy it was certainly working, he could think of many things worse than coming here for intellectual conversations and a little bit of comfort. Only it would be difficult to satisfy the demands for increased weaving production while spending time away from the workshop.
As he was visualising a sheltered future for himself and his family in the safety of this brilliant new world and wondering how he could address the issue of the needed increased productivity, a few voices on the corridor brought him back to reality. A very loud and drunken man laughed in hysterics and sometimes speaking in German and sometimes in poor Czech to two muffled deep voices, who were probably servants or friends taking him to bed.
“Oh Nein, ha ha, nein, I am ticklish, let go of me ha ha.”
“Please Herr Kommandant, please try to be quiet. We are in the sleeping quarters now.”
“Jawohl, Herr Judengeneral, jawohl. All is quiet. Shh. Ha ha.”
“Hold him while I open the door.”
“Genau, aufgemacht. All go in and then lock the door,” the drunkard giggled.
“Please be quiet!”
“You Czechs know how to party, oh I beg your pardon. You Slovaks. Tell her illustrious Highness I have had an excellent time tonight.”
“Thank you Herr Kommandant, I will let her know.”
“Tell her though that she must not invite such low life scum next time. These long haired communists and artists of the lower races. We must have none of that, ist das klar?”
“Jawohl Herr Kommandant, I shall advise the Countess of your sentiments. Now please enter the guest room.”
“You will see, my friend, my dear Hungarian friend, all this is going to end. We are not just going to send them away any more, we are going to get rid of them once and for all. Too many, too filthy, too dangerous. Stop tickling me ha ha.”
With that the voices retreated to the room and even though Jonah could hear that the voices were still arguing and laughing, he could understand nothing more of their dialogue.
For the rest of the night he found it difficult to settle down and sleep. He kept waking up, dreaming of a dinner table with the Countess and his family, surrounded by soldiers with their rifles aimed at each of the dinner guests. His brief period of feeling safe had ended as abruptly as it had begun earlier in the evening.
Author Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction
Website: Christoph Fischer Books
Twitter: @CFFBooks
E-Mail: ChristophFFischer@googlemail.com
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Author Description: Christoph Fischer was born in Germany as the son of a Sudeten-German father and a Bavarian mother. Not a full local in the eyes and ears of his peers he developed an ambiguous sense of belonging and home in Bavaria. He moved to Hamburg in pursuit of his studies and to lead a life of literary indulgence. After a few years he moved on to the UK where he is still resident today. 'The Luck of The Weissensteiners' is his first published work. "Sebastian" has been released in May 2013. He has written several other novels which are in the later stages of editing and finalisation.
Author's Book List
Sebastian
- The Three Nations Trilogy - Volume 2Sebastian is the story of a young man who, due to an unfortunate accident, has his leg amputated shortly before World War I. When his father is drafted to the war it falls to him to run the family grocery store in Vienna, to grow into his responsibilities, bear loss and uncertainty, and hopefully find love. Sebastian Schreiber, his extended family, their friends and the store employees experience the ‘golden days’ of pre-war Vienna, the time of war and the end of the Monarchy, while trying to make a living and to preserve what they hold dear. Fischer brilliantly describes life in Vienna during the war years; how it affected the people in an otherwise safe and prosperous location, the beginning of the end for the monarchic system , the arrival of modern thoughts and trends, the Viennese class system and the end of an era. As in the first book of the trilogy, “The Luck of The Weissensteiners” we are confronted again with themes of identity, nationality and borders. The step back in time from Book 1 and the change of location from Slovakia to Austria enables the reader to see the parallels and the differences deliberately out of sequential order, so as not to see one as the consequence of the other, but to experience them as the reality it must have felt like for people at the time.
Order the Book From: Amazon
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Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
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Thank you so much for your support James! :-)
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