by JAKOB ARJOUNI
'We were young then, as if getting older were some kind of illness for which there was no cure.'
'Magic Hoffman,' the novel, is translated from the German original and follows the captivating story of Fred and his best friends Nickel and Annette. Following a botched bank heist, Fred serves 4 years' porridge and - as any friend would do - refrains from dobbing his mates in. Anyway, he's still got the money they nicked to look forward to and the promise of a new life as far removed from 90's Berlin as possible in Canada, a country all three friends are dead set on emigrating to where they'd be free to their own devices.
The sad thing for Fred is that his two friends have moved on in the intervening four years and so he's at a loose end, given Nickel is now a dull family man and Annette - who Fred always has had and always will have a crush on - has a whole new, wild circle of film-making buddies.
Author Arjouni paints a depressingly oppressive picture of Berlin, post-Wall-shakedown� and there's no wonder mainman-in-the-story Fred dreams of escape. What's worse, the cops are soon onto him again after a bust-up in a bar, and it's no fun having to lie low� until that is he meets Moni, a sweet girly who lives in the flat above him.
So, while there is no so-called action in the story (none of it is set in the prison, or in the bank before it), the magic herein instead focuses on Fred's much-changed relationships with his friends and the one he trustingly forges with the new love in his life. Fred is a good bad guy in that he'd never hurt anyone (apart from near the end of the novel when he's in a ridiculously desperate situation on a train and he can't help let swing with a Nazi gang-member's baseball bat!�) and always has good intentions, and 'Magic Hoffman' (his nickname) dramatizes the way things have panned out with precise style.
Fred is the most likeable guy in Eastern Europe, and just when everything seems to have worked out come the final few pages of this 220-pager once he's got both the money and the girl in his hand and by his side, it's a tragedy that tragedy indeed strikes and poor Fred is left once again with nothing to show for his life� other than hardcore experience of shit, shit and then some.
As much as I want to rave about the brilliant, penultimate scene in the train station, I won't give the game away. All I'll say is that it genuinely is fucking heartbreaking, and proof that here in Jacob Arjouni is an incredibly talented and emotion-provoking writer. (STEVE RUDD)