THE JEWCATCHER

About the Book

Adolf Hitler, the romantic poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, two young gay lovers, Claus von Stauffenberg and the other heroes of the July 20, 1944 plot to end the Nazi regime, the ancient Norse gods, and the Devil himself are among the many characters in this look at life in Germany during the Second World War.

In a narrative both comic and terrifying, movie and theatre people, Nazis and resistance fighters, historical figures and the author's inventions interact in a jigsaw puzzle of a plot centered on life in Berlin. We see the gay bars of the Weimar Republic; the burning of the Reichstag; Josef Goebbels seducing a starlet; the anti-Semitic Kristallnacht riots; the "hospitals" in which the ailing are put to death; the Allied bombings; life in the Fuehrer Bunker, in which everyone waits for Fearless Leader finally to kill himself so they can make a run for it; the arrival of the Russians in a city of bomb craters and contentless facades; and the death, at last, of the Jewcatcher himself: Hitler.

About the Author

Ethan Mordden has written extensively for The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine, winning the National Magazine Award for Fiction for a story published in the latter. A native of Manhattan, he published the five-volume Buddies cycle, tales of gay life in a ?family? of best friends.