Arts & Literature
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House of Exile: The Lives and Times of Heinrich Mann and Nelly Kroeger-Mann
In 1933 the author and political activist Heinrich Mann and his partner, Nelly Kroeger, fled Nazi Germany, finding refuge first in the south of France and later, in great despair, in Los Angeles, where Nelly committed suicide in 1944 and Heinrich died in 1950. Born into a wealthy middle-class family in Lübeck, Heinrich was one of the leading representatives of Weimar culture. Nelly was twenty-seven years younger, the adopted daughter of a fisherman and a hostess in a Berlin bar. As far as Heinrichs family was concerned, she was from the wrong side of the tracks. In House of Exile, Heinrich and Nellys story is crossed with others from their circle of friends, relatives, and contemporaries: Heinrichs brother, Thomas Mann; his sister, Carla; their friends Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Dø¶blin, and Joseph Roth; and, beyond them, the writers James Joyce, Franz Kafka, and Virginia Woolf, among others. Evelyn Juers brings this ge
Editorial Reviews
"House of Exile is an engaging, unconventional exercise in collective biography . . . [that] mixes historical research with almost poetic imagination, creating a compelling panorama." -Ian Brunskill, The Times (London)
"Scintillating and rather magical...House of Exile is an extraordinary book, and a really rare accomplishment." -Michael Hofman, The Times Literary Supplement "Juers creates a composite subjectivity through which the reader experiences the unfolding political events with unusual intimacy and immediacy. Her use of various running motifs to connect different parts of the story adds to the effect . . . It's a provocative but inspired application of the methods of poetry to non-fiction . . . [There is] an implicit assertion that, in the right hands, history and biography can do everything the novel can do, only better. [Juers] certainly makes a good case for it." -James Lasdun, The Guardian
"Scintillating and rather magical...House of Exile is an extraordinary book, and a really rare accomplishment." -Michael Hofman, The Times Literary Supplement "Juers creates a composite subjectivity through which the reader experiences the unfolding political events with unusual intimacy and immediacy. Her use of various running motifs to connect different parts of the story adds to the effect . . . It's a provocative but inspired application of the methods of poetry to non-fiction . . . [There is] an implicit assertion that, in the right hands, history and biography can do everything the novel can do, only better. [Juers] certainly makes a good case for it." -James Lasdun, The Guardian
Readers Top Reviews
Helmut SchwarzerPear
This is not a biography of Heinrich and Nelly Mann per se. The subtitle is deceptive,whereas the subtitle of the UK edition ("War, Love and Literature, from Berlin to Los Angeles")describes the book more accurately, if not elegantly. The book was originally published in Australia in 2008 by Giramondo Publishing. It so happens that our author is co-publisher of that organization. I concede that the dustjacket flap makes no secret of it. However, as every author, publisher and bookseller knows, one does not have one's writing published by the company one owns,works for or is associated with in other ways. The reasons for this are obvious and need not be elaborated on. The author has read and excerpted widely from available sources, and some original research into Nelly's origins and family is evident. But the question to be asked is: was the book necessary? There is a great number of individual and collective biographies available on the lives and works of exiled artists of all stripes in all places, esp. the United States. The book is not a bad read, and some of the juxtapositions resulting from Ms. Juers' collage technique are indeed clever and illuminating. Other pages are mere padding and/or do not bear on the subject at hand. Especially puzzling is the introduction, several times over, of Virginia Woolf - not a displaced person, nor did she have any connection with anyone in the cast of characters. Three small errors: p.282, Hertha Pauli was never Mehring's wife, but his companion for a while; p. 288, Alfred Polgar was born as Alfred (not Josef) Polak; p. 303, Eva Hermann should read Herrmann.
S Riaz
This is a wonderful, collective biography, touching on various people, but based mainly on Heinrich and Thomas Mann who were forced to flee Europe for America. The book is split into two parts - the first of which looks at the Mann family before the war years and the second part taking us from 1934 to the end of the war. Although there are some authors mentioned who were not directly caught up in the need to flee Europe (Virginia Woolf and James Joyce for instance), most of those included in the book were exiles and fleeing for their very life against Nazi oppression. The author very cleverly sets the scene with part one of the book, which deals with their early life, Heinrich's envy of Thomas Mann's success, their sister Carla's acting career, family suicides and early relationships. There was also a breach between Heinrich and Thomas in 1910 - the rift lasted until 1922. Life seemed to be going along in much the usual way on a human level - with marriages, divorces, children, family probems, etc. Or, as normal as you can manage when Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929 and Heinrich elected President of the Literary Section of Prussian Academy of the Arts. However, the politics of the period would intrude all too soon. Heinrich was regarded as a leading representative of the Weimar Republic and was a tireless advocate of democracy and filled with the fledgling idea of a United States of Europe. Hitler considered Heinrich Mann to be the father of German literary activism and was worried that Mann could provide the unity so urgently needed by the Left and a perfect candidate for the Weimar Republic. Years later, Heinrich Mann considered he may have been right. In 1933 Hitler became Chancellor and Helrich was expelled from the Academy of the Arts and found himself under surveillance. When he left, he never set foot in Germany again. Over the next decade, half a million Germans left the country, including Thomas and Katia Mann to Switzerland and then later to America and Heinrich to France and then, also, to America. Heinrich now had a new lover, the much younger Nelly, who had worked as a barmaid. Despite Thomas Mann's dislike of Nelly and his discomfort around her, Heinrich obviously adored her and she made plans to escape Germany and follow him. She fled after being arrested three times and as Heinrich's books were being burnt and his work labelled "especially dangerous". This then is the personal and political life of some of the most talented and influential writers of a generation. The difficult, but touching relationship, between two brothers. The horrifying stories of authors suffering poverty, distress, hardship - often having feelings of panic and bouts of illness. The suicide rates were horrendous and, often, the writers and artists suffered not only loss of their home and fami...
NicolasJohanna Fishe
very good writing... loads of information about german jew writers who had to flee nazi Germany.
Short Excerpt Teaser
HOUSE OF EXILE (Chapter One)Blink of an Eye Approaching from a distance, hand in hand like lovers, the tall blonde and the old gentleman both called out to him – Brecht! He turned towards them and waved. The Californian sun glinted from his glasses like the sword of Zorro. It was early morning. Heat and the scent of jasmine hung loosely all about the market-place. Sunlight played upon the unreal splendour of the fruit and vegetables. Not quite real. Some people claimed the produce of this country lacked character, it always looked much more promising, bigger, brighter, than it tasted. Especially apples. They complained that there were certain things – gooseberries, for instance – which you could not get at all. Asparagus only came in cans. And who had been able to buy chanterelles since they'd left Europe? On this day in the summer of 1944, just before the German generals' attempt on Hitler's life, the news had sped like wildfire through the community of European exiles in Los Angeles that a farmer from the north was selling berries at the market. Not just strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, there was also a small supply of gooseberries. At the head of a line of people anxiously waiting to be served, Bertolt Brecht chewed on his El Capitán Corona. Fond of sayings and slogans, he proclaimed that the early bird catches the vorm, and money talks, and proceeded to buy up all the golden berries. Oh yes, they were ripe enough to eat. Striding across the plaza towards Nelly and Heinrich, he stopped here and there to divide the loot, handing Gänsebeeren, as he jokingly translated from the English, to friends who had missed out.–Ah, here comes the man who loves gooseberries, someone said in a heavy accent, referring to one of Chekhov's stories, casually, as if Russian classics were still common currency, as if Brecht had just crossed Berlin's Savignyplatz and was offering summer berries from a cone-shaped paper bag. Finally he scooped a great mound of amber fruit into Nelly's basket. He gave them each, Heinrich and Nelly, a translucent gem to taste.–One for Adam and one for Eve, he chuckled. The proof of the pudding. And crushing a berry against his own palate like an oyster, announced triumphantly that it was delicious, the real thing, not a hybrid, and that he was no gooseberry fool.
It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA, ‘COULD HAVE'
Several months later, on Sunday 17 December 1944, at home at 301 South Swall Drive, Los Angeles, in the not yet broken darkness before dawn, the outline of a bowl of fruit on the windowsill, its curves – a hand of bananas Nelly had bought earlier in the week, grapes, some pears – reminded Heinrich of Brecht's generosity and of their animated exchange that day at the market, when they'd all had new information about friends in trouble, jailed, people killed, and shocking rumours of the progress of the war. Oh the terrible disgrace! They'd switched between languages, Stachelbeeren, Stacheldraht, Stacheln, barbs.–Barbarians! Brecht had exclaimed. But that moment, which Heinrich tried to conjure up, now faded.
It left nothing before his eyes but a silhouette of fruit backlit by a gauze of curtains, grey on grey. He was a very old man shrinking from the night, from this terrible night, the worst night of his life.
He was no longer sobbing uncontrollably. He felt numb. Unable to focus. Did he doze? Briefly? Perhaps he was dying? His only physical sensation came from the bridge of his spectacles pressing on his nose. He made himself take them off, and rubbed his eyes. Did he then recall or did he dream? That when they were children his brother had once worn a peg on his nose for a whole day, until a blockage in the plumbing was fixed and the stench the household had to endure was gone.
Heinrich sat very still inside the folds of his suit. Inside the immaculate whiteness of his long-sleeved shirt. His wife had washed it, hung it out, brought it in, ironed it as he watched her through the open door, and placed it on a hanger, smoothing it with the flat of her hand, tugging each cuff into shape. This image and the thought of her absence was too much to bear. He was crushed with grief. He sat deep inside the maculations of his own soft skin and felt minuscule. Like a grain of sand. His mind searched for a place to go, where it could escape.
In Lübeck. In summer. In the garden. In the scented air. Where it was warm and still. A red dragonfly–Sympet...
It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA, ‘COULD HAVE'
Several months later, on Sunday 17 December 1944, at home at 301 South Swall Drive, Los Angeles, in the not yet broken darkness before dawn, the outline of a bowl of fruit on the windowsill, its curves – a hand of bananas Nelly had bought earlier in the week, grapes, some pears – reminded Heinrich of Brecht's generosity and of their animated exchange that day at the market, when they'd all had new information about friends in trouble, jailed, people killed, and shocking rumours of the progress of the war. Oh the terrible disgrace! They'd switched between languages, Stachelbeeren, Stacheldraht, Stacheln, barbs.–Barbarians! Brecht had exclaimed. But that moment, which Heinrich tried to conjure up, now faded.
It left nothing before his eyes but a silhouette of fruit backlit by a gauze of curtains, grey on grey. He was a very old man shrinking from the night, from this terrible night, the worst night of his life.
He was no longer sobbing uncontrollably. He felt numb. Unable to focus. Did he doze? Briefly? Perhaps he was dying? His only physical sensation came from the bridge of his spectacles pressing on his nose. He made himself take them off, and rubbed his eyes. Did he then recall or did he dream? That when they were children his brother had once worn a peg on his nose for a whole day, until a blockage in the plumbing was fixed and the stench the household had to endure was gone.
Heinrich sat very still inside the folds of his suit. Inside the immaculate whiteness of his long-sleeved shirt. His wife had washed it, hung it out, brought it in, ironed it as he watched her through the open door, and placed it on a hanger, smoothing it with the flat of her hand, tugging each cuff into shape. This image and the thought of her absence was too much to bear. He was crushed with grief. He sat deep inside the maculations of his own soft skin and felt minuscule. Like a grain of sand. His mind searched for a place to go, where it could escape.
In Lübeck. In summer. In the garden. In the scented air. Where it was warm and still. A red dragonfly–Sympet...
