Mr. Brechbühl Is Looking for A Cat

English sample translation by Jake Schneider available
Recommended for translation by New Books in German (Spring 2017)

A unique literary experiment – and a magnificently entertaining novel with addictive potential

Initially, Tim Krohn’s ambitious idea was to explore all human feelings through writing – an account of the human condition of our times. To this he added another idea – as practical as it is brilliant: readers could support the author through crowdfunding. In exchange, they were allowed to pick a “feeling” from Tim Krohn’s list and name three words that they wanted to see appear in “their” story. From these stand-alone stories, the author built a complex novelistic universe of “human emotions.” Each chapter in this novel represents an “emotion.” With unbridled narrative enthusiasm and a great deal of wit, the author sends his characters into the “pain of parting”, “dreariness” or “enthusiasm” in young love, and confronts them with “glibness,” “disinterest” and “cynicism.” The first 65 episodes are collected in Herr Brechbühl sucht eine Katze.

The bestselling Swiss author succeeds wonderfully in artistically straddling intellectual experiment and great storytelling. The reader marvels, laughs and suffers along vicariously – and, at the end of the book, feels like he does after each of the individual stories in it: he just wants to keep reading!