In Babylon

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The worst blizzard the East Netherlands has seen in many years has left Nathan Hollander and his niece, Nina, snowbound in the deserted house of their late Uncle Herman. Waiting for the storm to subside, they piece together the story of their forefathers, a family of itinerant clockmakers who came from Eastern Europe to the Netherlands in the seventeenth century and fled to America in 1939.In this funny, quirky, epic novel, Marcel Möring weaves a gloriously inventive and very human story about man's constant drive towards progression and expansion, his coming and going, from the Old World to the New - and his desire, despite everything, for home and homeland.'Certain books make the reader recall what extraordinary contraptions these objects are. Paper, stitching, some glue, a bit of cardboard, ink: lo and behold, a Tardis. Not much to look at from the outside, but inside, infinite, forever unfolding, a tower to the clouds and a tunnel deep into the earth, an arrow into the heart. In 'Babylon' is such book. It is impossible to put this fat, rich novel into any kind of category. It moves confidently between family history, fairy story, love story, ghost story. Like the Jewish family whose stories it unfolds, it is wide-ranging, adaptable, learned and clever.'ERICA WAGNER, 'The Times''Marcel Möring is beyond doubt one of the most imaginative and perceptive novelists writing today'PAUL BINDING, 'TLS''A fat, rich novel...stuffed with story, bulging with plot. Read it once, then read it again.'THE TIMES''In Babylon', a book rich in death, ghosts and jokes, a dynasty of wandering clockmakers make their way, forever impelled westwards as refugees. It is Marcel Möring's achievement that he has rendered this profusion of trails from the Old to the New Worlds so diverse, so divergent and so divinely - or diabolically - funny.'AMANDA HOPKINSON, 'Independent on Sunday