Flights of Love: Stories

Bernhard Schlink brings to these seven superbly crafted stories the same sleek concision
and moral acuity that made The Reader an international bestseller.

His characters-men
with importunate appetites and unfortunate habits of deception-are uneasily suspended
between the desire for love and the impulse toward flight.

A young boy’s fascination
with an eerily erotic painting gradually leads him into the labyrinth of his family’s
secrets. The friendship between a West Berliner and an idealistic young couple from
the East founders amid the prosperity and revelations that follow the collapse of
communism. An acrobatic philanderer (one wife and two mistresses, all apparently
quite happy) begins to crack under the weight of his abundance. By turns brooding
and comic, and filled with the suspense that comes from the inexorable unfolding
of character, Flights of Love is nothing less than masterful