An Ordinary Youth

This distinctive autobiographical novel from Kempowski (1929–2007; Marrow and Bone), first published in 1971 and translated into English for the first time by Lipkin, remains his best-known work in his native Germany. In early-1940s Rostock, the Kempowskis are an upper-middle-class shipping family supporting the war effort despite their distaste for Nazism. Walter, the youngest, plays with toy soldiers and learns to love jazz from his wayward older brother, Robert, who fails at school and skips Hitler Youth meetings to go to the movies. Over the course of a few years, the family is pulled apart—Walter’s father goes off to the front, reliving his WWI glory days in Flanders, where he was stationed; Robert becomes a driver for the army; and their sister marries a Dane in Copenhagen. Walter is left at home with his mother, a wonderfully realized character who’s anxious, ridiculous, and courageous all at once. Lipkin’s masterly translation successfully renders the family’s quirky routines and made-up expressions like “That’s Goodmannsdörfer” and “That’s Badmannsdörfer,” combining regular adjectives with random words from Rostock. The result is a distinctive portrait of a pivotal time. (Nov.)