Tumbler Pigeons

Novel. MS, 275 pp.

June 8th 2004, 5.55 p.m. Karl Wegerich is smelling pidgeons´ flesh. His wife is preparing supper – an infringement of the Wegerich premises´ food statutes. But when it rains, it pours: the pearl barley isn´t cooked in time, either. Karl Wegerich abstains from the soup and starts eating his pigeon at 6 o´clock sharp .

Karl Wegerich is part of the postwar generation atoning for their fathers´ sins while reproducing them. He´s victim and perpetrator alike. His recollection mirrors a meshwork of Hitler-fascism, GDR-socialism and post-reunification-ecology.

Tumbler Pigeons. Synopsis

Novel. Manuscript. 275 pp.

June 8th 2004, 5.55 p.m. Karl Wegerich is smelling pidgeons´ flesh. His wife is preparing supper – an infringement of the Wegerich premises´ food statutes. But when it rains, it pours: the pearl barley isn´t cooked in time, either. Karl Wegerich abstains from the soup and starts eating his pigeon at 6 o´clock sharp .

Following a childhood in Danzig and his father´s disappearance – post officer, NSDAP member and pidgeon breeder -, Karl Wegerich, his mother and brother are resettled to Thuringia. With the village boys calling him a Polak, his brother abandoning him the only thing left is his love for tumbler pigeons. Whereas famished in Danzig he had to eat up his favorite pigeon, in Thuringia the tumblers are his entry into society. After becoming a carpenter they turn to substitute human relations for him.

Conformance is not what Karl Wegerich is after: In the GDR he longs to be the better native, Christian, carpenter, communist and saver. He´s representing the shady sides of state-decreed Anti-Fascism as well as the remainders of national socialist ideologies in the GDR. Raising his daughter by manipulation, silence and concealment, he considers himself innocent when acting of sabotage or beating his daughter, yet is obsessed by the notion of provoking WW III or shipwrecking the Velvet Revolution.

He remains rigorous after reunification: Though managing to breed a new pigeon race he abstains from registering his “Wegerich´s Genuine”. With the breakout of a bird flu epidemic he thus fails to prove their official admission and has to watch them killed. FAcing the empty shed he suffers a heart attack and dies.

Karl Wegerich is part of the postwar generation atoning for their fathers´ sins while reproducing them. He´s victim and perpetrator alike. His recollection mirrors a meshwork of Hitler-fascism, GDR-socialism and post-reunification-ecology.

Tumbler Pigeons. Excerpt

Sonia Karst: Tümmler, Roman.
“Excerpt (German) Download (pdf) >>”:files/karst_tümmler_auszug.pdf

Rights available

World Rights
E-Book
Movie/TV
Audio

Order examination copy>>