1 h 53 minAudiobook6 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
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
You will enjoy it if you love letters, poems and the inner weather of two people, or if you are drawn to stories about art, age and the way love changes a person.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Maria warns Roland before love can begin
- Roland has lived small and wants out
- Love grows and art takes its place
- Maria teaches through small tales
- Roland begins to write for the stage
- Age and change shadow the happiest days
- What the letters are really about
Who’s who
- MariaA forty-two-year-old woman and artist who believes in change, and who wants to free others without holding on to them.
- RolandA twenty-five-year-old bank clerk from a small town who falls in love with Maria and discovers he can write.
- The old womanA figure in Maria's tale who answers every question with back then and smiles through a life of loss.
- Roland's colleagueA bank clerk whose uncle is a dramaturge at a leading theater, and who helps carry Roland's play to the stage.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 1 h 53 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 6 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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The Step: Fragment of a Love
A woman of forty-two warns a young bank clerk to flee, and he answers by coming back every day.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to read25 languages
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In short
A woman of forty-two warns a young bank clerk to run away from her, and then writes him a long letter anyway. The Step: Fragment of a Love is an epistolary novel by Franziska Mann, told only through the letters of Maria and Roland.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Maria warns Roland before love can begin
The book opens with a warning. Maria is forty-two, Roland is twenty-five, and she tells him he would do better to look at the blond and brunette girls around him. She adds that she is not faithful in the usual sense and never wanted to be.
She explains her own idea of fidelity. For her, what counts is the trace one leaves in another soul, not the number of years spent together. She calls herself a carrier of mortar, someone who helps others build their own castles, and she admits that she was usually the one who left, drawn on by some new soul.
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What is The Step: Fragment of a Love about?
It follows Maria, a woman of forty-two, and Roland, a young bank clerk, through the letters they write as their love grows. It looks at change, art and age, and at what a feeling leaves behind.
Who are Maria and Roland?
Maria is an older woman and an artist who calls herself a seeker of souls. Roland is a shy twenty-five-year-old bank clerk from a small town who returns to poetry and begins a play after he meets her.
Is The Step a true story?
It is a novel by Franziska Mann. It is written in letters, and nothing in the book shows that it follows real people.
The author
Franziska Mann
1859–1927 · German writer
Franziska Mann tells this intimate love story through letters. The book shows a world of cities, theaters and trains, and it gives deep attention to women who think about art, age and freedom.
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