A Wonderfully Witty Literary Thriller
Post date: Jan 27, 2014 9:07:42 PM
Take an elderly woman, add a young writer who also happens to be serial killer, mix in a couple dozen imaginary characters who may not be all that imaginary, and finish up with a big dollop of literary humor and what do you get? You get Fred Schäfer’s delightful The 92-Year-Old Lady Who Made Me Steal a Dead Man's Car.
Eberhardt Walker is a 34-year-old writer whose biggest concern in life is the fact that he secretly murders rapists as a hobby. But when Eberhardt meets 92-year-old Irene Sonntag in the middle of a busy intersection, and she convinces him to steal the car of another man who has just been run over in that intersection, his life really becomes unreal.
It seems Irene owns a rather large private library in which literary characters come to life, and many of them are not happy with the way they are portrayed in their books. Jay Gatsby, for instance, doesn't like the way F. Scott Fitzgerald left him floating in the pool at the end of The Great Gatsby. Jesus wants more humor in the Bible. Henry Miller's wife, June, wants more credit for being the role model for the character Mona in Sexus.
Eberhardt and Irene, along with their cadre of characters, embark on a criminal enterprise designed to secretly rewrite sections of some of the world's greatest literature that takes them from New York to Europe and back again.
Aptly subtitled A Thrilling and Seriously Funny Novel, 92-Year-Old Lady is a wonderfully witty rump through literature, philosophy, and criminality. If you're looking for a wickedly funny read, this is it.