The Landauer House is the architectural masterpiece at the heart of Simon Mawer’s breathtaking novel, “The Glass Room” (Other Press), which follows the Landauer family as they fight to keep their household intact and escape persecution from the encroaching Nazi troops. Named a best book of 2009 by publications like Slate.com, the Observer, London Evening Standard, and the Economist, “The Glass Room” is a work of infinite depth and precision, touching on subjects that are intrinsically linked to our humanity. Time Out London says:
The writing, as sensual and sophisticated as its subjects, keeps us firmly within the house’s elegant parameters, caught up in the touch and taste and roiling emotions of the characters living through these events. Seeing clearly, Mawer shows us, is never an option, no matter how large and expensive your windows. Every era thinks it has achieved transparency, complete with modern fixtures and sundry decorations. But we can’t ever actually see out, because our damned humanity keeps misting up the glass.
And the Guardian calls “The Glass Room” “a novel of ideas, yet strongly propelled by plot and characterized by an almost dreamlike simplicity of telling.”
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