Landeier

Sebastian Kunze is a big-city journalist whose career has stalled, and he lands with his wife and daughter in rural Brandenburg, where his wife Melanie, a psychotherapist, sets up a practice and quickly finds patients in need. Tom Liehr's novel follows a man long past the age of typical coming-of-age stories as he slowly realizes, over the course of his family's relocation, how much he has gambled away through his own self-absorption, and what he actually has in the quiet, unglamorous life he initially resents.

"Landeier" plays city sophistication against rural simplicity, using Sebastian's grudging adjustment to the countryside as the engine for a comic, ultimately tender character study.