Friedrichstrasse 19 is 6 stories set in the same building over its lifetime. We see Berlin through the eyes of those that lived in the building between 1906 and 2019, and there are some serious historical moments as well as cultural highlights: a woman in the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion) in 1986; a photographers apprentice in 1906; an unhappily married Jewish woman who meets an actress pre-WW2; the Berlin Airlift post WW2 era, when the actress is trying to find her Jewish lover (she knows there’s little chance); 1969 and a photographer finds a young GDR escapee and decides to help her; 2019, a divorcee originally from the East, who met her ex-husband on the night that the Wall fell.

All intriguing characters and stories that give a glimpse into urban life in Berlin, as well as its history. It probably helped that I was familiar with the history of Germany generally (thanks to a German degree many years ago!), and I make a point of reading fiction set in Germany when/ if I come across it. And this is a pleasure when I come across books like Friedrichstrasse 19!

It’s hard for me to believe that this book was not written by a German since if I did not read the name of the author, I might have thought that this is a German novel in translation. The theme of time travelling in this story kinda reminded me of Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel Visitation (2008). Erpenbeck through her novel that’s written in 12 snippets chronicles the story of a vacation villa by the lakeside in the southeastern part of Berlin throughout the twentieth century. In Erpenbeck’s story, the characters inhabiting the villa changed throughout the century, from an architect working for Speer during the Nazi era in the 1930s until the end of the Cold War that see the villa abandoned. Similarly, Emma Harding also experiments with time and space in her novel. The timeline is quite ambitious which spans from 1906 to 2019, yet the space remains the same: Friedrichstraße 19.

Friedrichstraße is a unique place in Berlin with its own unique history throughout the twentieth century. The street forms the core of the Friedrichstadt district, which was named after Prussian King Friedrich I, and also gives name to the famous Berlin Friedrichstraße Station. Before 1920 when the Greater Berlin Act was introduced by the Weimar government, Berlin was a small city compared to its later areas. The inclusion of the suburbs into Berlin proper made Friedrichstraße the central part of the city, booming in the 1920s with its vibrant queers and underground subcultures, before finding itself in a strange situation after the Cold War. The street was heavily damaged during the Second World War and it was divided into two parts as the construction of the Berlin Wall went through it, along with the famous Checkpoint Charlie. Part of Friedrichstraße in West Berlin became a residential neighbourhood, in which the story takes place.

The story begins with Tonja in 1986, in a spur of the moment when the former RAF member escapes in a car driving from West Berlin through the road connecting the political enclave with West Germany bringing a baby in her car’s passenger seat, before quickly turning to Rudi in 1906 who is apprenticing to the Academy’s photographer. The view then changes into Sara in 1929, a Jewish woman unhappily married who finds herself attracted towards Sigi, a female neighbour who just moved in. Two decades later during the Berlin Airlift, as the Soviets blockaded West Berlin for almost one year, Sigi finds herself longing for her former lover even though knowing fully well that there’s little chance for a Jewish woman to survive the war. In 1969, Hans finds himself discovering Ilse, a young girl not yet twenty, who escaped from East Berlin in the fuel tank of an Isetta. In 2019, Heike, a divorced Ossi, finds herself in a strange situation in which she recalls the moment she jumped into her Wessi soon-to-be husband’s hands on the night the Berlin Wall fell.

It’s quite a complex story, so to say, with its ambitious timeline. People who are unfamiliar with twentieth-century German history would probably get lost in the course of the story, as Emma Harding likes to use cultural signifiers rather than merely describing facts. She doesn’t describe openly the confrontation towards the Jews in the 1920s, but put some subtle signs through the actions of cabarets singing anti-Semitic lyrics as Sara watches. In describing the flight of Ilse to pass the Berlin Wall, she hints at subtle references to BWW Isetta, the car model that Klaus-Günter Jacobi used in 1963 to smuggle his best friend from East Berlin. Through the expansive timeline and rich cultural references, Emma Harding manages to document how Berlin as a city and Friedrichstraße in particular which lies at the heart of Berlin had transformed from time to time. In some parts of the story, similar people inhabit different timelines as they grow older or through some mystical connection that allows them to communicate across time in the same space, they inhabit (or had inhabited).

Through her novel, it’s as though Emma Harding invites me (and probably other readers too) to think of time not as something moving in a straight line. But it’s not some story that questions the physics aspects of time. It’s intriguing and the way the story is presented made me all the more interested in the history of Berlin, the people who had been inhabiting the space there, who probably had different fates ascribed to them each in their respective timelines. It could be said, even now, Berlin is still trying to find her own identity. As the saying goes: »In Berlin ist alles möglich«

Thanks to John Murray Press and NetGalley for providing the electronic advance reading copy.

I'm not sure if I love or hated this book: it's multilayered and complex as Berlin. A story that talks about the life of different people living in Friederichstrasse 19, in Berlin.
Complex, fascinating and well written. I wouldn't define it entertaining but it surely reflect the atmosphere of this fascinating city.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Emma Harding uses the appealing device of telling the story of Berlin through the lives of the tenants at a single address, Friedrichstrasse 19.

Taken in by his uncle in 1906, Rudi finds a niche for himself apprenticed to the Academy of Magical Arts’ photographer. In 1929, Sara is unhappily married when a chance encounter introduces her to the love of her life, a cabaret performer of satirical songs who lives upstairs. Two decades later Sigi still longs for her lover knowing that there’s little chance that a young Jewish woman could have survived the war. In 1969, glamour photographer Hans has set up a studio in one of the apartments, taking in a runaway from the East. By the mid-80s a Red Army faction is squatting in the building, planning an operation. Finally, in 2019 recently divorced Heike thinks tentatively of a future.

Harding’s novel explores themes of endurance, war and its legacy as her narrative crisscrosses the century or so it spans. Each section is told in the distinctive voice of one of her smartly observed characters, making connections as their stories unfold. Just one criticism: I’d have liked a ‘90s/00s thread exploring the aftermath of the Wall's collapse. That said, I enjoyed this absorbing, atmospheric novel which transported me to one of my favourite cities.

Spanning more than a century, Friedrichstrasse 19 is the story of six people, who all inhabit the building and city of Berlin at different points in modern history. From the prophetic young child at the beginning of the 20th century, to Sara and Sigi who fall in love despite the odds of circumstance and war knocking at their door. There is the teenager who falls in love with the first man she meets after jumping over the wall in 1989 but finds herself a middle-aged speed dater when her marriage of thirty years crumbles. Another leaves her husband several years prior to the wall’s fall to join a radical group of activists who will stop at nothing to spread their gospel. And then there is Hans, a photographer of nudes who finds little joys in what pleasures his photographs attempt to rouse in others. He is plagued by the mystery of his absent father and the war crimes of his mother. The walls of Friedrichstrasse 19 hold these stories close and contain them in a way that interweaves each narrative with each other.

I picked this one up on a whim after being in a weird old mood of not knowing what to read, and because of this, I didn’t have any real expectations going in. At first, the chapters read like separate stories, each person living their own distinct lives at different points of Berlin’s history. Yet, these stories flow into each seamlessly thanks to Harding’s incredibly clever style of writing and the interspersion of subtle nods to other stories found throughout. Hopping back and forth, this is a character driven story yet the backdrop of Berlin and its history, makes the story feel bigger than the individual lives lived in Friedrichstrasse 19. This was a truly wonderful read that took me completely by surprise. I highly recommend this gem of a book, it's beautiful.

Over a century, the inhabitants of Friedrichstrasse 19 tell their stories.

The book explores the Germany of the early 20th century, the Second World War, the 1960s, the reunification of Germany and modern day, through those who lived in the block.

Interestingly written, with different styles for the different characters, the book illustrates the huge changes in Germany over the 20th century. Some characters are likeable, some less so, but all have a story to tell.

A building in Berlin is simply perfect for a modern gothic. Freidrichstrasse 19 rolls on the wave of an opening quote and a joke: one about life betraying its secrets and the other a Bob Hope and Irving Berlin schtick. Like Berlin, the tale is full of contradiction. It is full of ghosts, but it isn’t a ghost story, steeped in brash politics but subtly preachy, full of relationships that never really bear fruit.

Beginning with a horrific terrorist incident pre- fall of the Berlin Wall, it then spools out through the accounts of its residents. A young apprentice gets caught up in spiritualism and the birth of motion photography. There is a stream of consciousness post-war chronicle, a modern-day tug-of-love-and-angst, and finally an Iron Curtain era photographer’s tale as raunchy as a second-hand PVC SS minidress.

With chapters labelled by character’s names and dates, this is a book of layered consciousness, and true to its Joycean roots, one chapter runs into the other. The stories traverse time, proving to be interlinked with the building and its cast of residents. There’s a mystery, too, weaving its way through the book based on images from the second sight of a young, gifted seer.

If you like Berlin, you will get this book. The East-West divisions that still haunt Berlin, haunt the pages. If you’re into psychological and experimental fiction, the author takes enough chances to make the post-mortem dissection of the unconventional relationships seem fresh. If you like Gothic but want something a little more edgy and demanding, the lack of melodrama in lieu of real life drama will satisfy. Though a few of the mysteries are resolved(ish) in the end, the reader does have work to do à la the ambiguous endings of literary fiction. And, if you struggle with multiple narrators, time shifts and meandering plots, then you will find this book a challenge.

Emma Harding has summoned a creative voice here. Much like Berlin itself Friedrichstrasse 19 leaves a lasting impression, one that is unique and forthright. She has taken chances with the form of the novel, bent time, shown strong women and weak men, and crafted neat memorials to the people (good and bad) who lived within the walls of one building on a street in a capital where disgusting acts were delivered upon humankind.

The writing isn’t punchy or pacy -- I couldn’t finish it in a sitting. I found myself taking breaks and thinking of books that handled the themes better: “The City & the City” as a view of a divided Berlin, “Where’d you go Bernadette?” as a look into a woman’s middle-aged angst. However, Friedrichstrasse 19 offers an a layered amalgamation of those (and other) themes wherein is found the jolie-laide face of Berlin.

Thanks very much to NetGalley UK and John Murray Press for the eARC.

I devoured this book. Spanning decades and told from the perspectives of numerous residents of Friedrichstrasse 19, this is a stunning look at the history of a fractured city and the lives of those who live in it. I adored every page and was heartbroken when I finished it. Can’t recommend enough!