Auslander

By Mary Curtner Powell

Auslander--the German word for "outsider." In this novel, four women explore the many ways one can be an outsider geographically, culturally, and emotionally. They chronicle the life of the Jahn family in the close-knit German community of Schoenberg, Texas, during the '60s, '70s and '80s. Their counterpoint dialogues draw us into the family's marriages and separations, births and deaths, business failures, and moments of joy and into the German-Texan culture with its sometimes rigid traditions and prejudices. The voices we hear are from Queenie, matriarch of the family and wife of Beno; Carol Anne, the bride of Queenie's son, Fritz; Vera, the niece Queenie and Beno tried to raise as a daughter; and Sheila, Carol Anne's cabaret-singing mother from Houston. Fritz Jahn, young, ambitious, and reserved, is the center around which the four women revolve. He truly loves Carol Anne but cannot understand her inability to settle down in Schoenberg. His closeness with Vera threatens to go beyond brotherly love and complicates Vera's relationship with Carol Anne and Queenie. Sheila is worldwise, practical and puzzled by conventional family life. Perhaps the most compelling voice belongs to Queenie, the one who holds the family together. Speaking in the inverted sentence structure of those for whom German is the more natural language, she interprets and comments on what she sees with insight and wisdom. Mary Powell, a resident of the Hill Country, captures that area's climate and geography in rich descriptions of fields and wildflowers and terrifyingly real scenes of a flash flood. She is equally insightful in portraying the lingering German culture of small towns like Schoenberg. In Auslander Powell creates a powerful and realistic story of a family defined by their heritage yet sharing universal joys and sorrows.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0875652158
• ISBN13: 9780875652153
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Texas Christian University Press
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Ausländer

While I loved the story this book told, I found the many errors in the German very distracting (the German word is "Ausländer," not "Auslander.") I grew up in Austin, and knew there were Germans in Texas, although I am not one of them. It was apparent that the author has never seen German written, and evidently the publishing company did not see fit to hire an editor who had. At first I thought that she was trying to represent possible linguistic shifts in Texas German, but since one of the main characters was a student of German Language and Literature, it was not believable for her to be unable to spell in German, and this was not the only problem she displayed with the German language. I did love the character development, and I hope Powell continues to write; she is obviously quite talented. She had good insights into the complexity of the female role in society.

CAN'T PUT IT DOWN

I picked up this book one afternoon at a book store and couldn't put it down until I had finished it that night. Coming from a German background myself, I found Auslander extremely spellbinding. You don't, however, need to be German to feel the sense of family and understand the changes that a family goes through with each new generation. The fact that Mary Powell told her story through the voices of her characters made the reader feel as if she were reading diary entries of the four women in the book. It made the book more personal and insightful. If I had to compare Powell's style to a modern novelist, I would say she's right up there with Barbara Kingsolver.