Berlin

Marthe Müller is an aspiring artist escaping the memory of a brother killed in World War I by throwing herself into a life-altering romance. Kurt Severing is an idealistic journalist losing faith in the printed word as fascism and extremism take hold. The Brauns are a family torn apart by poverty, politics, and the May Day protests of 1929. The Cocoa Kids are an American jazz band slowly realizing there’s no place left for them in a changing Berlin. Lutes weaves these characters’ lives into the larger fabric of a city slowly ripping apart, crafting a polyphonic novel that is rich in its historical detail and as timely as ever in its depiction of a society slowly awakening to the stranglehold of fascism.