The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures, by Jennifer Hofmann

I was very much looking forward to reading Jennifer Hofmann's The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures.  It sounded like a Kafka-esque story of a bureaucrat caught in the cogs of his own bureaucratic system.  That is true of the story; it definitely hearkens to Kafka, especially in the early going.  Bernd Zeiger established his place in the Stasi with his manual "The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures," but now at the end of his career, his relevance is tenuous. 

Zieger uses his resources to try to track down Lara, a young lady with whom he crossed paths and became obsessed with.  Like many East Berliners, she is missing.  The government doesn't want to admit that East Germans are fleeing the country, but the allure of the West is too strong for many living under communism.  The story of his search becomes flashbacks, and flashbacks during flashbacks, building a twisted chain of events that eventually will turn Zeiger's methods back on him.

In the same vein as Kafka's fiction, Hofmann's story give a glimpse into life in East Berlin in the post WW2 era, right up to the fall of the Berlin wall.  The story itself didn't grip me, and the cultural and historical material took a back seat to the story.  There were some interesting twists, but ultimately I was disappointed.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!