Me and the Waiters
1996, Rowohlt Verlag, paperback // re-issued in 2006 by Rowohlt Taschenbuch
“Today is my thirty-sixth birthday and I’ve been divorced from a waiter for the third time.” Thus begins the story of Thea Goldmann, a sassy, precocious, rebellious kid who grows up on the sunny side of the economic miracle that took place in post-war West Germany.
Her father is a sausage and baby-cream manufacturer from the Rhineland, her mother a supermodel, her stepmother is from Bavaria, and Thea is valiantly fighting a losing battle between nouveau riche dreariness and catwalk glamor.
With ingenuity, wit, and a confident feel for tempo and punch lines, she entertainingly takes stock of the first seventeen years of her life.
Reviews
“The West German economic miracle viewed from a point between Cologne and Garmisch-Partenkirchen is dissected by a fierce girl named Thea … Pia Frankenberg isn’t dishing dirt; she’s simply describing the vain bombast of the era’s rich and powerful. Nothing is sacred in this book, thank god.
”Focus
“… The result is a scathing, at times highly amusing look back at the sixties, an ironic moral history of West Germany under Chancellors Adenauer and Erhard. The book tells of the heartfelt belief in the economic miracle and affluence, sneers at the emptiness of the lives among staunch German homeliness and narrow-minded nouveau riche, and gleefully mocks nudists and media pomposity. The novel is one of those books that effortlessly glides between highbrow literature and an entertaining read. Many of Frankenberg’s descriptions are quite funny, although her view of the time is almost grim—there’s not a trace of nostalgia. She’s certain that this time was an emotional ordeal for many, “a time of repellent, inhibited libido.
”Der Spiegel
“Because I don’t believe in the much-lauded educational advancement, I wanted to write something quintessential about childhood.
”Pia Frankenberg
“You learn a lot about parent/child relationships and about the [West] German national character and are perfectly entertained at the same time. The recovering intellectuals who have recently been praising the achievements of the Adenauer era while expressing self-recriminations can learn from the book about the fatal mélange of soft-hearted fathers, economic growth, and energetic Catholicism.
”Freitag (Berlin)
“A social portrait of a post-war nouveau riche clan—splattered onto damask tablecloths with audaciousness and cool, observant language.
”Münchner Abendzeitung
“Anyone who cannot laugh out loud at the anarchic imagination and furious wit of director and screenwriter Pia Frankenberg probably had an even worse childhood.
”Journal Frankfurt
“The book shouldn’t be read as a reckoning. I find it completely absurd and unproductive to do something creative for revenge. I just don’t have the time for that.
”Pia Frankenberg
“For the most part, what Pia Frankenberg covers in over three-hundred pages becomes a magnificent panorama of West Germany.
”Deutschlandfunk
“Pia Frankenberg has now written a book that is as beautiful as her films, loveable, wicked, and strangely funny.
”TAZ