Product Description The first novel by Bernhard Schlink since his international best seller The Reader, Homecoming is the story of one man's odyssey and another man's pursuit.A child of World War II, Peter Debauer grew up with his mother and scant memories of his father, a victim of war. Now an adult, Peter embarks upon a search for the truth surrounding his mother's unwavering--but shaky--history and the possibility of finding his missing father after all these years. The search takes him across Europe, to the United States, and back: finding witnesses, falling in and out of love, chasing fragments of a story and a person who may or may not exist. Within a maze of reinvented identities, Peter pieces together a portrait of a man who uses words as one might use a change of clothing, as he assumes a new guise in any given situation simply to stay alive.The chase leads Peter to New York City, where he hopes to find the real person behind the disguises. Operating under an assumed identity of his own, Peter unravels the secrets surrounding Columbia University's celebrated political science professor and best-selling author John de Baur, who is known for his incendiary philosophy and the charismatic rapport he has with his students. Terrifying mind games challenge Peter's ability to bring to light the truth surrounding his family history while still holding on to the love of a woman who promises a new life, free of lies and deceit.Homecoming is a story of fathers and sons, men and women, war and peace. It reveals the humanity that survives the trauma of war and the ongoing possibility for redemption.From the Hardcover edition. From Publishers Weekly Peter Dabauer's determined search for an author and the ending of a book marks the starting point for his own literary journey, but his answers yield only more questions in Schlink's new novel. Dabauer's life symbolically resembles the book's exploits while he is further befuddled by increasing discoveries about his own path and its connection to the potential author. Like all quests, his is not particularly linear and he is often interrupted by his own present-day tribulations. Paul Michael keeps readers enthralled with a soft and mellow voice that connects words and sentences fluidly. He instills Dabauer's first-person tone with a light Germanic accent, which personalizes Dabauer to listeners. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review Praise for THE READER:"A formally beautiful, disturbing, and finally morally devastating novel. From the first page, The Reader ensnares both heart and mind."--Los Angeles Times"A masterly work... The reviewer's sole and privileged function is to say as loudly as he is able, 'Read this' and 'Read it again.'"--George SteinerFrom the Hardcover edition. About the Author Bernhard Schlink was born in Germany. He is the author of the internationally bestselling novel The Reader, as well as four prize-winning crime novels-The Gordian Knot, Self's Fraud, Self's Punishment, and Self Slaughter--that are currently being translated into English. He lives in Bonn and Berlin.From the Trade Paperback edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1When I was young, I spent the summer holidays with my grandparents in Switzerland. My mother would take me to the station and put me on the train, and when I was lucky I could stay put and arrive six hours later at the platform where Grandfather would be waiting for me. When I was less lucky, I had to change trains at the border. Once I took the wrong train and sat there in tears until a friendly conductor dried them and after a few stations put me on another train, entrusting me to another conductor, who then in similar fashion passed me on to the next, so that I was transported to my goal by a whole relay of conductors.I enjoyed those train trips: the vistas of passing towns and landscapes, the se