Electing to omit her narrow escape with her husband from the Nazis and their immigration to New Jersey, Elisabeth Rother is writing her memoirs. The subject that consumes her is the waywardness of her daughter, Renate, and her granddaughter, Irene: Renate performs autopsies on the bodies of politicians whom death has harvested in the nighttime arms of their mistresses; Irene drops out of school to roam the world, refuses to correct her nose with plastic surgery, and shows alarming signs of enjoying sex. What, Elisabeth ponders, is to be done with such women? With the love between mothers and daughters at its heart, The Empress of Weehawken is a novel that expertly mines the veins of comedy and tenderness.

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Photo: Cover of "The Empress of Weehawken" ©Amerikahaus München