Image for Investigation: About my Father

Image for Investigation: About my Father is Christoph Meckels celebrated work of memoir or father-biography in the mould of Paul Kerstens Der alltägliche Tod meines Vaters and Ruth Rehmanns Der Mann auf der Kanzel. The book is an act of need personal and political: an attempt by the son of a former German officer in the Second World War to account not merely for his fathers actions but for the actions of a generation. His compassion his dexterity with the knife his lack of sentiment when sentiment would only slow his hand his seeing around his subject his willingness (an artists) to explore--these traits make Image an uncommon work of its kind. Meckels language is unsparing torn from a heart shut tight and wounded by love. This edition revises Stan Joness original translation and includes a new introduction by Ben Winch.Ironically the portrait which is more believable is not that of E. Meckel but of the author himself who inadvertantly appears in the role of a judgemental petulant and vindictive son out to even with his father for the many unjust punishments he had suffered at the latters hands. -- Anest Andrea World Literature TodayA chapter of family history which is not unique and not purely private but representative and political through-and through. . . . A sensitive officer who would rather have sat at his writers desk and yet enjoyed command; a father who would rather have been the dad-at-play and yet claims the position of head of the family in all circumstances and sees correction as his duty: the images fit together exactly. -- Elsbeth Pulve Schweizerische Monatshefte