Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for The Appointment by Katharina Volckmer - Available

The Appointment

A Novel

by Katharina Volckmer
Katharina Volckmer
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
"A darkly funny untangling of national and sexual identity." —The Guardian * "Transgressive...Incendiary." —The New Yorker * "A furious comic monologue...with a disregard for propriety worthy of Alexander Portnoy." —The New York Times Book Review * "Sexy, hilarious, and subversive." —The Paris Review

For readers of Ottessa Moshfegh and Han Kang, a whip-smart debut novel in which a woman on the verge of major change addresses her doctor in a stream of consciousness narrative.
In a well-appointed examination in London, a young woman unburdens herself to a certain Dr. Seligman. Though she can barely see above his head, she holds forth about her life and desires, her struggles with her sexuality and identity. Born and raised in Germany, she has been living in London for several years, determined to break free from her family origins and her haunted homeland. But the recent death of her grandfather, and an unexpected inheritance, make it clear that you cannot easily outrun your own shame, whether it be physical, familial, historical, national, or all of the above.

Or can you? With Dr. Seligman's help, our narrator will find out.

In a monologue that is both deliciously dark and subversively funny, she takes us on a wide-ranging journey from Hitler-centered sexual fantasies and overbearing mothers to the medicinal properties of squirrel tails and the notion that anatomical changes can serve as historical reparation. The Appointment is an audacious debut novel by an explosive new international literary voice, challenging all of our notions of what is fluid and what is fixed, and the myriad ways we seek to make peace with others and ourselves in the 21st century.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Bestselling Fiction

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 1, 2020

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781797115658
      • File size: 83308 KB
      • Duration: 02:53:33

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 27, 2020
      Volckmer’s coruscating debut takes the form of a Bernhardian monologue made during a medical exam. While the title is a nod to the novel’s setting, its alternate title (The Story of a Jewish Cock) engenders the salacious tone. Sarah, the German-born, London-based 30-something narrator, opens the book by relating her sexual fantasies of Hitler to Dr. Seligman, her Jewish gynecologist. As Seligman examines Sarah, she provides a chaise lounges-like Freudian confessional, a setup that allows Volckmer to display her mastery of dark comedy. Sarah ponders epithets for the Fuhrer’s penis and explains how loving “a Jew... a proper one, with curls and a skullcap” is the only way for a German to overcome Holocaust guilt. The narrative is deepened when Sarah explores how the shame of being German has impacted her psyche: she describes a romance begun in a public toilet and her disdain for her familial and national roots, even airing out her frustration of being stereotyped as a German well versed in “Max fucking Sebald.” The book ends in a passage of contemplative beauty that grounds Sarah as a human trying to solve her own complications. The narration successfully walks a tightrope of incendiary subject matter via German-Jewish humor and literary touchstones; Volckmer’s inversion of Portnoy’s Complaint is a revelation.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading