THE CURRENT FANTASY

In Haas’ historical novel, a German family moves to California in search of peace and freedom as the First World War approaches.

In 1914, Anna Lanz, a violin player, lives in Berlin with her husband Gerhard—he builds telephone switchboards— and two not-quite-teenaged children, Benji and Lilli. War is brewing across Europe, and she lives in a state of emergency, waiting for the world to explode. Gerhard is hopelessly impractical and waits idealistically for communism to deliver them salvation. Anna hears about Sunland, a bohemian community that has retreated into the mountainous countryside of Langenhain, where clothing is optional and electricity is frowned upon. Surprisingly, Gerhard agrees to visit for a couple of days with the family, and they become intoxicated with the simplicity and solace of this place that seems free from global tumult and the crassness of modern life. As Richard Weiss, more or less the leader of Sunland puts it: “Do you know what you do? You have people living in a state of obscene decency. Instead of manufacturing you have singing. Instead of money you have good looks. In place of the army you have conversation under the trees.” In this moving and startlingly fresh novel, the Sunland members—with the Lanz family in tow—decide to decamp for San Bernardino County in California, a land where arable farmland is abundant with the reputation of being the “world capital of being left alone.” However, there is no complete escape from the war—the Sunlanders wrestle with the prejudice and suspicion reserved for enemy aliens, which intensifies as the war begins. Moreover, the sexual libertinism of Sunland is not always emancipating, and threatens the marital bond between Anna and Gerhard. Haas’ writing style is supple and bitingly ironic—there is not a hint of preachy didacticism here, and he vividly captures the wages of world war and the sometimes-quixotic responses to it. This is a mesmerizing novel, delightfully funny and unpretentiously wise.

A sparklingly eccentric novel, historically intelligent and wryly amusing.