The standardization of demorilization procedures

First Title Value for Searching:

Personal Author:

Hofmann, Jennifer

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

261 pages ; 25 cm.

Genre:

Thrillers (Fiction)

Spy fiction.

Summary:

"On November 9, 1989, Bernd Zeiger, a Stasi officer in the twilight of his career, is deteriorating from a mysterious illness. Alarmed by the disappearance of Lara, a young waitress at his regular café with whom he is obsessed, he chases a series of clues throughout Berlin. The details of Lara's vanishing trigger flashbacks to his entanglement with Johannes Held, a physicist who, twenty-five years earlier, infiltrated an American research institute dedicated to weaponizing the paranormal. Now, on the day the Berlin Wall falls and Zeiger's mind begins to crumble, his past transgressions have come back to haunt him. Who is the real Lara, what happened to her, and what is her connection to these events? As the surveiller becomes the surveilled, the mystery is both solved and deepened, with unexpected consequences"--

Subject Term:

Missing persons -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Waitresses -- Fiction.

Memory -- Fiction.

Sick -- Fiction.

Secrecy -- Fiction.

Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany, 1961-1989 -- Fiction.

Science -- Experiments -- Fiction.

Publication Info:

New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2020.

Subject:

Missing persons -- Investigation -- Fiction.

Waitresses -- Fiction.

Memory -- Fiction.

Sick -- Fiction.

Secrecy -- Fiction.

Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany, 1961-1989 -- Fiction.

Science -- Experiments -- Fiction.

Berlin (Germany) -- Fiction.

Germany (East) -- Fiction.

Thrillers (Fiction)

Spy fiction.

Germany (East). Ministerium für Staatssicherheit -- Officials and employees -- Fiction.

Germany (Democratic Republic, 1949- ). Ministerium für Staatssicherheit

Germany (East). Staatssicherheit, Ministerium für

Stasi

MfS

Staatssicherheitsdienst der DDR

Retention (Psychology)

Ill persons

Concealment

Berlin wall (1961- )

Berliner Mauer, Berlin, Germany, 1961-1989

Baralīna (Germany)

Berlijn (Germany)

Berlim (Germany)

Berlin (Germany : State)

Berlin State (Germany)

Berlino (Germany)

Berlinum (Germany)

Berolinum (Germany)

Land Berlin (Germany)

Stadt Berlin (Germany)

Verolino (Germany)

Germany (Democratic Republic, 1949- )

Deutsche Demokratische Republik

Tyske demokratiske republik

Democratic German Republic

German Democratic Republic

East German Democratic Republic

East Germany (Democratic Republic)

DDR

Germanskai͡a Demokraticheskai͡a Respublika

Nĕmecká demokratická republika

NDR

Nimet͡sʹka Demokratychna Respublika

GDR

Niemiecka Republika Demokratyczna

NRD

Német Demokratikus Köztársaság

NDK

Tyska demokratiska republiken

Östtyskland

Republica Democrată Germană

Repubblica democratica tedesca

Germany (Democratic Republic)

D.D.R.

N.D.R.

G.D.R.

N.R.D.

N.D.K.

República Democrática Alemana

RDA

R.D.A.

Ostdeutschland

Eastern Germany

Cộng hòa dân chủ Đức

SAILS ISBN:

9780316426459

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Foxboro - Boyden Library	FIC HOFMAN	FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Norfolk Public Library	F HOFMANN, J. STA	FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Wareham Free Library	F HOF	FICTION	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

In a world of spycraft, betrayals, and reversals, a Stasi officer is unraveled by the cruel system he served and by the revelation of a decades-old secret, in this "story that John le Carré might have written for The Twilight Zone " ( Washington Post ).

A BuzzFeed Best Book of 2020

On November 9, 1989, Bernd Zeiger, a Stasi officer in the twilight of his career, is deteriorating from a mysterious illness. Alarmed by the disappearance of Lara, a young waitress at his regular café with whom he is obsessed, he chases a series of clues throughout Berlin. The details of Lara's vanishing trigger flashbacks to his entanglement with Johannes Held, a physicist who, twenty-five years earlier, infiltrated an American research institute dedicated to weaponizing the paranormal.

Now, on the day the Berlin Wall falls and Zeiger's mind begins to crumble, his past transgressions have come back to haunt him. Who is the real Lara, what happened to her, and what is her connection to these events? As the surveiller becomes the surveilled, the mystery is both solved and deepened, with unexpected consequences.

Set in the final, turbulent days of the Cold War, The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures blends the high-wire espionage of John le Carré with the brilliant absurdist humor of Milan Kundera to evoke the dehumanizing forces that turned neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend. Jennifer Hofmann's debut is an affecting, layered investigation of conscience and country.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this enrapturing debut, Hofmann constructs a beguiling tale of espionage, moral responsibility and the "spooky action" of quantum mechanics. Taking place in 1989 East Berlin before the fall of the wall, the story is structured around a series of entanglements and disappearances. Bernd Zeiger made his name in the secret police by writing a "demoralization" manual detailing how to sow confusion, extract confessions, and "put an entire nation, a world, to sleep." In the 1960s, Zeiger spied on and elicited the confession of his neighbor Johannes Held, a quantum physicist withholding information about a secret American experiment in teleportation he'd gleaned while on a fellowship in the Arizona desert. In 1989, Zeiger tells Held's story, and his role in it, to Lara, a young waitress to whom Zeiger is particularly drawn. The guilt-ridden and ailing Zeiger wants to offer Lara "coherence, linkages, the sequence of things"--in other words, the "perfect confession." Shortly thereafter, Lara herself vanishes, and Zeiger sets about trying to locate her. The plot grows intricate but never convoluted as the connections between Zeiger, Held, and Lara gradually come into focus. In portraying two equally head-scratching phenomena--paranormal vanishings and the absurd, sinister workings of a totalitarian state--the novel hovers between genres like a subatomic particle between states. All the more impressive, Hoffman's exceptional debut never loses sight of the desires, mysteries, and small acts of rebellion that persist within dehumanizing systems. (Aug.)

Kirkus Review

In 1989, an older Stasi operative in East Berlin ponders the disappearance of a young woman and recalls a torture victim in this fine debut. Bernd Zeiger boosted his early career with the East German secret service in the 1960s by writing a manual on how to demoralize those suspected of veering from the party line. Now he is 60 and has been shunted aside to minor surveillance duties. His days usually proceed according to a regular schedule and predictable meals (the German word Zeiger can refer to the hand of a clock). But during much of the novel's single day he's preoccupied with Lara, a young waitress at his local cafe who vanished a month ago, and a physicist named Johannes Held, whom Stasi operatives tortured years earlier after he returned from a fellowship to Arizona. Hofmann, who was born in the U.S. but grew up in Germany, writes in assured prose of carefully chosen details that mark the best period fiction. It can be a while before it's clear that this is not a Cold War spy thriller. As Zeiger's day proceeds, interrupted by long flashbacks, Hofmann conjures up dark comedy in an understated, quirky satire of the Stasi's bureaucracy and cruelty and the paranoia that permeated East Germany. It's more smiles than George Smileys, but the author also finds tension in mysteries other than a lady vanishing: Why do boys go missing in the Arizona desert? Were the Americans working on teleportation? Why is his blind, womanizing neighbor visiting the same Meissen shop as Zeiger when he buys a porcelain dog for Lara? At the end of this day in 1989, Zeiger and his ilk are left to contemplate the biggest disappearance ever in a city with a wall built to prevent departures. A remarkable first novel that reads like the work of a seasoned pro. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

A Stasi agent searches for a missing woman only to be ensnared by the secrets of his dubious past in this seriocomic riff on a Cold War spy novel. Bernd Zeiger made a name for himself by authoring a celebrated interrogation-protocol manual. But now that his health is declining, he builds his days around the office cafeteria menu and plots to report his neighbor for suspicious activity. In a moment of tenderness, he unburdens himself to Lara, a young waitress, about his long-ago involvement with a scientist who worked with the Americans on teleportation technologies. Soon after, she disappears. Meanwhile, the German Democratic Republic is crumbling, and the Stasi's Hermeneutics Department bickers over pop-song lyrics. Hofmann's debut narrative progresses to a Berlin mental institution, and into the Arizona desert, where orphaned Mexican children are involved in ominous paranormal experiments. Despite noirish trappings and some clever plot reversals, Hofmann's novel is noteworthy not for its riff on the espionage-thriller genre, but for using a surreal historical moment to explore broader points about the collapse of ideals and the corrosiveness of secrecy.