Matthias Göritz Der kurze Traum des Jakob Voss (The Short Dream of Jakob Voss) Berlin Verlag GmbH, August 2005, 214 pp ISBN: 3-8270-0609-0 One could be forgiven when first hearing about this novel, set on a poultry farm in bleak rural northern Germany, if one felt that, whatever the power of the language, it would be an unlikely candidate for translation. Well, one would be wrong. A little relevation with the elements of a classic tragedy, this short novel consistently and poignantly told from the perspective of the adolescent son of dreamer Jakob Voss, is one that can be read in a sitting, with the reader holding his breath for the last thirty pages. In a way it is a universal tale of a middle-class family striving for more, the emptiness both of suburbia (American Beauty isn't a world away) and the impossibility of being newcomers in a place. Many eyes are watching to see the 'city people's' fall from grace: a father, disappointed by the rupture in his career as local politician, seeking to prove he can succeed in anything he chooses, even in a trade new to him such as duck, chicken and turkey farming; his wife, determinedly cheerful and forever bolstering his self-esteem; and their son, the narrator, uprooted from his school and friends, feeling the first stirrings of sexual desire, writing his own rules, and not partial to the scent of blood that hangs around the place and its slaughter-house. Hardly a romantic setting, but it's one that allows the full palette of emotion: dreams crushed, budding hope, ideals turning to dust, freedom awakening, a reluctant lord of the manor and his restless workers, a crumbling marriage, a possible first love story, loneliness, envy, greed. It is all there in what is a most impressive debut by a new and powerful literary voice. From the early uncertainty to the dramatic finale, this is a read that lingers.