by Simon Mawer
Viktor and Liesel Landauer commission architect Rainer von Abt to design their perfect modern home in 1920s Czechoslovakia. The Glass Room becomes the center of their world, filled with their children and a circle of avant-garde artists and intellectuals. Viktor, a wealthy Jewish businessman, finds comfort with another woman while Liesel seeks thrills with her unpredictable friend Hana. Their marriage fractures as their secrets multiply. When Nazi forces arrive, the family flees to America, leaving behind everything they built. The house passes through different hands as the country changes from Czech to Nazi to Soviet control and back again. Each new occupant falls under the spell of the crystalline space. Years later, the Glass Room draws the Landauers back to confront what they left behind. The story weaves together passion and betrayal, scientific precision and raw desire, confession and fear across decades of European upheaval.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, architecture
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Czechoslovakia, America
Period: 1920s, World War II
Paperback · Ambo|Anthos
Content warnings: war