First published 2017
Seventeen-year-old Franz Huchel arrives in Vienna to work at a tobacco shop, leaving his small town life behind. The shop serves many customers, but one stands out: Sigmund Freud, the famous psychoanalyst who visits regularly. Franz and the older man develop an unlikely friendship across their generational divide. When Franz becomes infatuated with Anezka, a dancer who performs in music halls, he turns to Freud for guidance about love and women. The psychoanalyst confesses that female psychology puzzles him as much as it does Franz. Their conversations continue as Vienna changes around them. The Nazis occupy Austria, and the city Franz knew begins to disappear. Political pressure mounts on Jewish residents like Freud, while Franz watches his world transform. The tobacco shop becomes a refuge where the two men can still talk, but even this sanctuary cannot remain untouched. As conditions worsen, Franz, Freud, and Anezka each face the same impossible choice: remain in Vienna despite the dangers, or abandon everything they know and flee to safety.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unlikely-friendship
Setting: Vienna, Austria
Period: 1930s
224 pages · Paperback · Anansi International