title: The Empire of the Senses: A Novel
author:  Alexis Landau 
description: Elegantly crafted and psychologically astute...compelling ....Such stunning imagery is interwoven with pitch-perfect and often spare dialogue, creating a doubly vivid resonance. <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i><br /><br />Richly appointed . . . functions as a kind of extended sance, conjuring up the look and feel of experiences from the glamorousa decadent party in Weimar Berlinto the arduousa field hospital on the Eastern Front . . . . In scene after scene, settings and objects and people are described in meticulous and usually attractive terms . . . . The destruction of their world makes Landaus evocation of its fleeting beauty all the more poignant. <i>Tablet </i><br /><br />Vivid . . . Landau evokes the Weimar Republic era with spellbinding detail and nuance, deftly capturing the zeitgeist in the characters colorful pursuits . . . . Levs struggle with his Jewish identity is also fascinating. <i>Publishers Weekly</i><br /><br />A top-notch literary saga with a gripping plotline . . . Each perfectly crafted individual is fully involved in the surrounding world. In Landaus hands, even a simple trip to the barber becomes meaningful and illustrative of the novels themes. The characters actions and thoughts are so three-dimensionally human that readers may forget theyre reading fiction. <i>Booklist</i>, starred review<br /><i></i><br />Landaus debut<i> </i>is lush, smart, sexy, affecting, interesting, beautifully researched, and well made. Spending time in the world of this novel is an absolute pleasure. Aimee Bender, author of <i>The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake</i><br /><i></i><br />A gripping, beautifully written saga of an ordinary German familys slow immersion into the simmering cauldron that is Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Like most of us, the characters in this novel make choices determined by love and desire; their personal secrets and preoccupations often loom larger than the encroaching danger. Ultimately, their fates are determined as much by their passions as by history. As the novel builds toward its riveting conclusion, Landau explores how the unimaginable can become realand in the process offers a fresh and moving perspective on a piece of history we thought we already knew. Christina Baker Kline, <i>New York Times</i> #1 best-selling author of <i>Orphan Train</i>
zlib_text: ![](images/00003.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
  coincidental.
  
  Copyright © 2014 by Alexis Landau  
    
  
  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a
  division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of
  Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House companies.
  
  Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
  
  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
  
  Landau, Alexis.  
  The empire of the senses : a novel / Alexis Landau.  
  pages cm  
  ISBN 978-1-101-87007-5 (hardcover). ISBN 978-1-101-87008-2 (eBook).  
  1\. Jews—Germany—Fiction. 2. Interfaith marriage—Fiction.  
  3\. World War, 1914–1918—Campaigns—Eastern Front. 4. Germany—  
  Social conditions—1918–1933—Fiction. 5. Life change events—Fiction.  
  6\. Id