Berlin, through the eyes of others

Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of publishing Going Over, my book about Berlin 1983, is hearing from so many readers who have Berlin stories of their own to tell. My friend E., from the pottery studio, who was living there when the wall came down. A certain writers' mother-in-law, who had more than one intriguing experience not just with the wall, but with the guards. A reader who would, she says, retire to Berlin if she could.

This morning, Joanne, a writer and book lover, shared with me this post about her trip to Berlin in the 1970s—photos and all. It's a fascinating excursion. I'm grateful, too, for Joanne's extremely generous words about Going Over. 

All of that is here.

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The GOING OVER excerpt: a first look at the inside pages

Chronicle Books has made Going Over, the Berlin novel due out on April 1, a priority—and I feel that every day. In their enthusiasm, in their ideas, in their innovations, in their just plain them-ness, they are united; they are engaged. "Reach out anytime," Sally Kim, who leads the marketing effort, said to me last evening, during a call she most certainly did not have to make. I appreciate these things, wholly.

I'll be sharing more about Berlin and the wall and the heartache and the possibilities as the launch countdown begins in earnest. Today I share a Going Over excerpt—a link made possible by the Chronicle team. This is the book. This is how my two characters—Ada and Stefan—speak of their separate worlds. This is Berlin, 1983.

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Unveiling the Berlin Novel

Yesterday, Tamra Tuller and I finished the copy editing work on my Berlin 1983 novel.  Due out from Chronicle in early 2014, the book sprung from a conversation I had with Tamra and from travels to a city I did not expect to love as much as I most fervently did.

With flap copy now finalized, I have the green light to share that with you.  Little by little, this book now makes its way into the world.

The photograph above is not the cover, of course.  But it is a glimpse of the Berlin I found in the summer of 2011.

It is February 1983, and Berlin is a divided city—a miles-long barricade separating east from west. But the city isn’t the only thing that is divided. Ada, almost 16, lives with her mother and grandmother among the rebels, punkers, and immigrants of Kreuzberg, just west of the wall. Stefan, 18, lives east with his brooding grandmother in a faceless apartment bunker of Friedrichshain, his telescope pointed toward freedom. Bound by love and separated by circumstance, their only chance lies in a high-risk escape. But will Stefan find the courage to leap? Will Ada keep waiting for the boy she has only seen four times a year ever since she can remember? Or will forces beyond their control stand in their way?
 
Told in the alternating voices of the pink-haired graffiti artist and the boy she loves, this is a story of daring and sacrifice, choices and consequences, and love that will not wait. 

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a few words from my Berlin novel

Today, I'm thinking about my Berlin novel (Berlin, circa 1983) even as I write corporate story upon story and sneak in the daily 200 words on Florence.  Berlin is the book I wrote for Tamra Tuller, the book, indeed, that I've dedicated to her and that remains with her as she begins what I know will be a storied career at Chronicle Books.  Sometimes we miss our characters.  Today I'm missing my Ada and her best friend, Arabelle.  I'm missing the conversations Tamra and I had about this city we both love.

And so I return them to myself:

The snow that melted during the day has slicked.  The piles of snow that Timur shoveled to each side are dirty white walls, zigging and crusted.  I ride a crooked path across the cobblestones and out of the gates onto the street and turn.  St. Thomas Church shines in the distance.  There’s mush and ice and cars and music coming from the bar down the alley.  Beneath the wide wheels of Arabelle’s bike the ice snaps and the mush goes squish and when a gray cat scampers out from behind a parked truck and I swerve, the belt of Arabelle’s arms around me tightens.  I’m yanked back and my boot slips.  The front wheel wobbles.  I get us going again and look up and back at our complex, and there she is, Mutti in the window, her face in a halo of frosted glass. 

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