A SUMMER IN NIENDORF – A Novel

• Longlist of the German Literature Prize in 2022! 
• 105,000 copies sold!
• "Heinz Strunk can justifiably be called a genius … with every book that he publishes, his craftsmanship gains sharper contours.” Berliner Morgenpost
• Heinz Strunk's previous novel It's Always so Lovely with You was longlisted for the German Book Prize 2021 and sold over 50,000 copies.

A pitch-dark summer escape.

Heinz Strunk’s new book is like a north German version of Death in Venice, only the temptations are a little less subtle than those in the book written by Thomas Mann, the man from Lübeck. A middle-class hero, a lawyer and writer named Roth, he sets off for Niendorf for a sabbatical. He plans to write an important book, a reckoning with his family. He is unlikely to run into anyone from his own circle in the petit bourgeois town on the Baltic Sea – which is why he chose it. But he soon gets into the clutches of a loud and banal demonic spirit: a man who rents out beach chairs and also owns the local off-licence. Disconcertment and annoyance slowly grow into a random community and, at some point, a necessity. The off-licence owner’s girlfriend is the third person to join the group – very far from being a perfect woman – and yet … by the end of the summer story, Roth has completely lost touch with his old life; he has become someone else …