Red Love: The Story of an East German Family [Paperback]

Now, married with two children and the Wall a distant memory, Maxim decides to find the answers to the questions he couldn't ask. Why did his parents, once passionately in love, grow apart? Why did his father become so angry, and his mother quit her career in journalism? And why did his grandfather Gerhard, the Socialist war hero, turn into a stranger? The story he unearths is, like his country's past, one of hopes, lies, cruelties, betrayals but also love. In Red Love he captures, with warmth and unflinching honesty, why so many dreamed the GDR would be a new world and why, in the end, it fell apart.
Growing up in East Berlin, Maxim Leo knew not to ask questions. All he knew was that his rebellious parents, Wolf and Anne, with their dyed hair, leather jackets and insistence he call them by their first names, were a bit embarrassing. That there were some places you couldn't play; certain things you didn't say. Absolutely enthralling . . . Mr. Leo vividly evokes the second-rate nightmare of repression, intolerance and low-level menace dramatized in the film The Lives of Others.”--The New York Times Book Review

  In this winner of the European Book Prize, Leo not only produces a moving family memoir, but also a probing exploration of the human need to believe and belong.  --Kirkus Reviews

Leo’s experience as a journalist shines throughout the memoir; he is at times distant and objective but also compassionate and inquisitive about his own history. His family’s story, spanning from both sides of his parents to his grandparents and their families, is extraordinarily compelling. . . Translator Shaun Whiteside marvelously captures Leo’s distinct voice; the writing is clear and poetic. . . Leo’s memoir humanizes this history and offers readers a glimpse into a different past. --The New York Daily News

Maxim Leo has produced a lucid, dispasslc"