Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
It is a modern novel that adheres to simple beliefs, tell a story well and construct a fictional reality that rings true. I had the uneasy feeling that I was just old enough to see these things shifting for the first time, a snapshot of a much longer cycle, a split second in the inestimable history of my own deep time. Lyman is a 12 year old who is abused by his father and after running away from him into a abandoned house ends up meeting a mysterious woman he names Hachet. As the answers start to come and Ralf’s life explodes, the truth is shocking and the implications are massive.
Throughout the narrative, Fergusson vividly injects observations that are so mundane and commonplace to human existence, regardless of time or place, you marvel at how he ever thought of them. An enjoyable read - apparently the third segment of a Berlin trilogy set in the same building over the course of a century. Without forcing the parallels down your throat, Fergusson manages to make the events unfolding in Ralf’s life and the wider political issues find their own threads.He is having bisexual yearnings but has had most experience with his friend Maike Eillert who is part of a group of teenagers with whom he socialises. An Honest Man is a extremely well crafted novel by someone with a vast knowledge of his subject and an incredible gift of the storytellers art. Until then they spend their days and nights relaxing: they go to the swimming pool, on nature excursions, drink together etc.
Michael's passions outside of writing and reading involve a variety of outdoor pursuits - hiking, camping, boating, and fishing are all likely to occupy his free time when he's not working on a new book. Ralf is intensely curious about his apartment building environment and becomes focussed on an inhabitant about whom he has doubts which seem to be realised even closer to home than he had suspected. As Ralf’s relationship with Oz deepens he is forced to question where is own loyalties lie, and who is willing to betray.
AN HONEST MAN, with its hardscrabble coastal-Maine setting in all is surly beauty, is the best novel set in that area since Stephen Dobyns’ A BOAT OFF THE COAST and Stephen King’s THINNER. Certainly there is more to this thriving city which is dynamic and fascinating in many ways but walking through the streets there are evident battle scars around every corner. It is important to study the background of Germany back in 1989: West Germany, East Germany, West Berlin, East Berlin and of course the Berlin Wall.
Charles who is the honest man in the title has to grapple with bent policemen and other problems as he tries to check into the background of the case before it gets to court, The court is the Central Criminal Court known as The Old Bailey and if you have ever done jury service there, as I have some years ago, it is a very impressive place to be in and the nuts and bolts of a court case occurring there are very daunting but also very interesting. The story is told by Ralf, the German-British narrator and main character, looking back at the summer of 1989 in (West) Berlin when he was 18, expecting his Abitur results to decide which university he should choose to attend Geology; go to England, his maternal family country, or stay in Germany and close to his friends and family. They spend their days swimming, smoking and daydreaming about the future, oblivious to the storm gathering on the other side of the Berlin Wall. I have some second hand knowledge of life in West Berlin and the social and political environment, physical representations, colour, feeling and smells were all spot on.
As Ralf's relationship with Oz deepens he is forced to question where is own loyalties lie, and who is willing to betray. In Ben Fergusson's An Honest Man our narrator Ralf revisits a particularly significant year in his life. I loved the coastal small town setting, the original premise, and the dynamics between the characters.
Great Deal 
New Comment