Jörg Hartmann, “The Noise of Life”

Whether it’s the plight of his deaf grandparents under the Nazis, his mother’s worldly wisdom as she briefly ran a French fry stand, his father’s dementia—his father having been a lathe operator and passionate handball player—the many quirky experiences within the extended family, or the pivotal encounters he had as an actor—Hartmann always strikes a balance between tragedy and comedy.

His narrative voice is powerful: personal, touching, and humorous. And he asks: Why do we keep returning to our roots? For Hartmann, it’s about capturing the cycle of life: parents and children, beginning and end, departure and arrival, becoming and passing away—in short, everything that is part of the beloved clamor of life. A wise, story-rich book about origins and home—and the desire to break free from them and set out into the world. An *Éducation sentimentale* and, almost as an aside, a history of the mindset of the Federal Republic of Germany.