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From The Man Booker International Prize finalist Robert Seethaler comes a tender, heartbreaking story of one young man and his friendship with Sigmund Freud during the Nazi occupation of Vienna.
Seventeen-year-old Franz Huchel journeys to Vienna to apprentice at a tobacco shop. There he meets Sigmund Freud, a regular customer, and over time the two very different men form a singular friendship. When Franz falls desperately in love with the music hall dancer Anezka, he seeks advice from the renowned psychoanalyst, who admits that the female sex is as big a mystery to him as it is to Franz.
As political and social conditions in Austria dramatically worsen with the Nazis’ arrival in Vienna, Franz, Freud, and Anezka are swept into the maelstrom of events. Each has a big decision to make: to stay or to flee?
“Seethaler blends tragedy and whimsy to create a bittersweet picture of youthful ideals getting clobbered by external forces.” — Guardian
“Set at a time of lengthening shadows, this is a novel about the sparks that illuminate the dark: of wisdom, compassion, defiance, and courage. It is wry, piercing and also, fittingly, radiant.” — Daily Mail
“Robert Seethaler’s The Tobacconist is a coming-of-age story, that’s sweet, balanced between pathos and humour.” — Toronto Star
“The Tobacconist is a poignant, tragic look at the creeping rise of fascism in Vienna before the outbreak of the Second World War. Told with humor and pity, the novel expertly depicts how easy it is to find, and lose, one's place in the world.” — Shelf Awareness
“This powerful work evokes the hate-mongering and mistrust engendered by the war while leavening melancholy with sly wit.” — Booklist