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    The Draughtsman
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    The Draughtsman
    Unavailable
    The Draughtsman
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Draughtsman

    Written by Robert Lautner

    Narrated by Peter Noble

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Speak out for the fate of millions or turn a blind eye? We all have choices.

    ‘Absolutely exceptional. So beautifully written, with precision and wisdom and real emotional acuity … A remarkable achievement’ STEPHEN KELMAN, author of Pigeon English

    1944, Germany. Ernst Beck’s new job marks an end to months of unemployment. Working for Erfurt’s most prestigious engineering firm, Topf & Sons, means he can finally make a contribution to the war effort, provide for his beautiful wife, Etta, and make his parents proud. But there is a price.

    Ernst is assigned to the firm’s smallest team – the Special Ovens Department. Reporting directly to Berlin his role is to annotate plans for new crematoria that are deliberately designed to burn day and night. Their destination: the concentration camps. Topf’s new client: the SS.

    As the true nature of his work dawns on him, Ernst has a terrible choice to make: turning a blind eye will keep him and Etta safe, but that’s little comfort if staying silent amounts to collusion in the death of thousands.

    This bold and uncompromising work of literary fiction shines a light on the complex contradictions of human nature and examines how deeply complicit we can become in the face of fear.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 9, 2017
    ISBN9780008126759
    Unavailable
    The Draughtsman
    Author

    Robert Lautner

    ROBERT LAUTNER was born in Middlesex in 1970. Before becoming a writer he owned his own comic-book store, worked as a wine merchant, photographic consultant and recruitment consultant. He now lives on the Pembrokeshire coast in a wooden cabin with his wife and children. He is the author of The Road to Reckoning, which was a Simon Mayo Book Club choice, and The Draughtsman, which was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Quint is his third novel.

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    Reviews for The Draughtsman

    4/5

    13 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      One of the most exciting voices in young adult fiction, Jenny Valentine succeeds again with this story of a family coping with the death of a child.
    • 5/5
      15-year old Rowan's world is still shaken from the death of her outgoing, lovable older brother Jack. But she's not reeling. She doesn't have time for that. Jack's death has left a hole in her family that has plunged her mother into a deep depression, broken up her parents' marriage, and left her to singlehandedly run the household and care for her 6-year old sister, Stroma. Then something weird happens at the grocery store, and her life starts to change. A guy she's never seen before tells her that she dropped something and hands her a photo negative. It's definitely not hers. She doesn't even have a camera. So she throws it away. But the curiosity of a schoolmate, Bee, who witnessed the exchange compels her to fish it out of the trash and develop the photo. It's really not hers. But it's of her dead brother. Where did it come from? And who was that guy? This is one of the most mature and realistic "journey of healing" type books I've read. It wasn't gimmicky at ALL, and this book had the potential to be extremely gimmicky. It wasn't wrapped up too nice and neat at the end. The 15-year old narrator matures visibly throughout the course of the book. I especially liked the way the romance was handled. Rowan didn't bore everyone by spending page after page pining after her crush when she clearly has other things on her mind, and yet it managed to feel natural, not cheap or tacked on. It was a minor part of the book, but added a nice element. I would definitely recommend this book to teens looking for a realistic read.
    • 5/5
      This was a good case of "never judge a book by its cover". I bypassed this one for a while because the cover just looked too teenage (I'm an adult who just happens to still read a lot of children's/YA fiction). And yet when I did get round to it, I found it completely absorbing. One of those can't-put-it-down books. And I absolutely hadn't guessed the twist at the end!
    • 5/5
      British teenager Rowan is the glue that is holding her family together after the death of her brother. It's been two years since her brother Jack died, but her sister still writes him letters and her mother remains depressed. Her parents divorce has left Rowan as the caretaker of the family - far more responsibility than a fifteen year-old should have to take on. While this book was written for the teenage crowd, adults will find familiarity with the issues of depression, loss, and first loves.
    • 3/5
      First I should say that I did like the characters and cared about them. That being said, I didn't like much else. The plot varied between being unbelievable (coincidences, etc.) to being way too predictable. Also, the formatting of the dialogue was annoying. I guess I've just read so many books like this that this one doesn't stand out in any way for me, other than the fact they're in London rather than in the US.
    • 4/5
      This is a lovely story about 15-year-old, Rowan, who is trying to hold her family together after the death of her older brother, Jack, in a drowning accident. Her father has left the family home and her mother is suffering from a severe nervous breakdown so it left to Rowan to take care of the house, her mother and her little sister, Stroma. However, Rowan's life becomes even more complicated when a teenage boy hands her a negative claiming that she dropped it while in the checkout queue of the grocery store.This book deals with personal identity, bereavement, friendship and the difficulties of growing up. Rowan is a very engaging, likeable character who is struggling to survive. She is stubborn, introspective, brutally honest with herself and lonely. Although quite sad in parts, the book doesn't wallow in gloom and the thread of mystery throughout the story adds to a satisfying plot with an unexpected twist at the end. A worthwhile read.
    • 4/5
      Some historical events are so tumultuous they will form the basis of books, fictional and factional, for centuries to come: the Nazi genocide of the European Jury is one such event and, as recent exceptional novels prove, there is always another side of the Holocaust worth examining. The Draughtsman is the second novel by the gifted but slightly eccentric Robert Lautner, a writer whose wide-ranging CV equips him to write on – well, almost everything. The Draughtsman is a work of literary fiction which can be appreciated by almost everyone and on almost every level. Set in 1944, we learn not every able-bodied German was automatically drafted into the War Machine. Recently qualified and newly married draughtsman Ernst Beck has been unemployed for many months when he is offered work by Topf & Sons, one of Germany’s most prestigious engineering firm. His job is to design ever-more efficient crematoria for the labour camps, whose workers are being decimated by dysentery. Beck is a ‘good German’: non-political, he just wants to earn enough to support himself and his wife Etta. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing though, and when he learns the true nature of his work, Ernst reassesses his loyalties, and his life.