The Empire of the Senses

The clashing forces of nationalism and romantic love wage war in Landau’s vivid but uneven debut novel. Lev Perlmutter, successful businessman, German citizen, and assimilated Jew, volunteers to fight for Germany in the first World War, mainly to earn the respect of his gentile wife, Josephine, and her elitist family. Stationed near Riga, his experiences of war’s horror and deprivation are tempered by a passionate affair with a local Jewish woman, Leah, whose earthiness and humor are a beguiling contrast to Josephine’s icy perfection. Yet inevitably Lev must return to Berlin, where the Nazi Party’s gradual rise to power forms the backdrop for the Perlmutters’ own family drama: Josephine’s obsession with psychoanalysis, son Franz’s fearful overcompensation for his homosexuality, and daughter Vicki, stylish and rebellious, who stumbles into an unlikely connection with her father’s wartime affair with Leah. Landau evokes the Weimar Republic era with spellbinding detail and nuance, deftly capturing the zeitgeist in the characters’ colorful pursuits—jazz clubs, a nudist colony, a séance. Lev’s struggle with his Jewish identity is also fascinating, as his nationalist countrymen and Old World friends each challenge his loyalty to the faith. Yet when Lev’s past catches up with him at last, the pieces fall into place much too perfectly, dulling the novel’s shine. The dream fades and the mechanics are revealed—an allegory for the era, but one the reader could do without. Agent: Alice Tasman, Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. (Mar.)