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Audiobook edition · 1 h 53 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a letter must carry all the love, longing, and doubt that another person cannot hear?
In The Step: Fragment of a Love, Franziska Mann brings you close to love through letters rather than a narrator. Feelings arrive in fragments, one voice at a time. You notice what is said, what is held back, and how much an absent person can fill the page.
This intimate romance belongs to the German-speaking world of the early twentieth century and its tradition of confessional writing. Longing shapes the voice, while the title invites you to consider the weight of a small movement. To speak, stay, leave, or forgive: each possibility gives the idea of a step its emotional force.
What you’ll discover
- Love from the inside Meet the longing and doubt of love through the closeness of a letter.
- Silences that draw you in Read between what is spoken and what remains held back.
- An absent presence Explore how a letter reaches toward someone who is not there.
- The weight of choice Consider how a small step can hold the possibility of life-changing movement.
- Courage beside pain Spend time with confessional prose that makes room for frank feeling.
Who will love it
For readers who love intimate, voice-driven writing, letters and confessions, and the emotional weather of early twentieth century fiction.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A love told through letters
- Longing shapes the voice
- The weight of a single step
- Why this kind of book still speaks
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- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Der Schritt: Fragment einer Liebe
Letters reveal love and longing from within, as a single decision carries the weight of everything at stake.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Step: Fragment of a Love is an epistolary novel by Franziska Mann, a writer who died in 1927. It comes from the German-speaking world of the early twentieth century, a period when letters, diaries and confessional writing were a favorite way to tell a story of the heart.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A love told through letters
The novel belongs to the tradition of the epistolary book, in which a story is carried by letters rather than by a narrator. Readers meet the feelings of the writer as they are set down, often late at night, often in haste. This gives the form a closeness that a third person narrator rarely reaches.
The form also limits what you know. You see only what the writer chooses to say, and you must guess at the rest. That gap between the written word and the real situation is where much of the drama lies.
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What is The Step: Fragment of a Love about?
It is a novel in letters by Franziska Mann about love and longing. The subtitle points to a love seen in fragments, and the title suggests a decisive step at the center of the story.
Who was Franziska Mann?
Franziska Mann was a writer who died in 1927. She worked in the German-speaking literary world of the early twentieth century, and this epistolary novel is the work for which she is best remembered.
What is an epistolary novel?
An epistolary novel tells its story through letters, and sometimes diaries or similar documents. The reader sees events through the writers own words, which makes the telling intimate and often leaves gaps to be filled in.
The author
Franziska Mann
1859–1927 · German writer
Franziska Mann was a writer who died in 1927. She wrote in the German-speaking literary world of the early twentieth century, and her best-known work is this epistolary novel of love. Her writing belongs to a tradition of intimate, confessional prose.
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