My First Wife

'If you don't take me, I'm going to jump into the lake; I swear I will. Either you're going to marry me, or I'll jump!' Alexander Herzog, a young writer, goes to Vienna to escape his debts and a failed love affair. There, he is pursued by book-loving Ganna: giddy, girlish, clumsy, eccentric and wild. He thinks he can mould Ganna into what he wants. But no one can control her troubling passions. Based on Jakob Wassermann's own ruinous marriage, My First Wifebears the unmistakable aura of true and bitter experience, telling a story of rare intensity that unfolds in shocking detail. Translated with an Afterword by Michael Hofmann 'Painfully heartfelt, devastating . . . like something out of Chekhov.' Independent 'A sensational account of a marital breakdown . . . both beautiful and painful.' TLS