Viennese Romance (Vogel Collection)

The first English-language publication of a previously lost European jewel, Viennese Romance is set in the early 1900s and introduces us to Michael Rost, an 18-year-old Jewish youth. Hungry for experience, he comes to Vienna and forms passing relationships with everyone who crosses his path: whores, revolutionaries, paupers, army officers, and rich men alike. When a shady businessman takes the penniless Rost under his wing, he rents a room in the home of an affluent bourgeois family. He is seduced by the lady of the house while her husband is away on business, and shortly after starts an affair with her 16-year-old daughter as well. This love triangle threatens to destroy the entire family. In the mesmerizing figure of Michael Rost, we see the tortured relationship between cosmopolitan Jewish intellectuals and early 20th-century Europe. A compelling portrait of a decadent society, Viennese Romance also probes the obsessive–destructive nature of love.