The late Hofmann (The Parable of the Blind) explores the dissolution of a family from the viewpoint of an adolescent German boy in 1960 in this frank, affecting novel. Mother has asked Father to move out, and the story unfolds over a single morning while the family waits for the moving van that will take Father and the nameless narrator to new lodgings. Trying to gather fragments of his childhood "so that some of it might stick later," the boy wanders through the house and around the town with his sister trailing behind, spilling an endless stream of questions in a child's attempt to understand an adult's decision. Stripped, spare prose creates the impression that the boy is merely a detached witness to his parents' separation, but subtle clues belie his neutrality: an almost imperceptible impatience with his bumbling father; a muted desire to be noticed by his self-absorbed mother. As the day progresses, Father, a failed novelist, vacillates between confronting Mother and pretending that nothing is wrong, while Mother preens in a separate bedroom, awaiting the new, steadily employed lover who will take Father's place. As the clock winds down, the boy anxiously waits for a last-minute reprieve from Mother or some show of spirit from Father that will keep the family intact, however unhappy they might be together. While Hofmann's desolate emotional landscapes and darkly comic observations are not for those seeking a literary lark, readers will appreciate his deft handling of the minimalist plot and his authentic rendering of a precociously perceptive boy baffled by his elders. (May)
