Bricks and Mortar

Bricks and Mortar is the story of the sex trade in a big city in the former GDR, spanning from just before 1989 to the present day. It charts the development of the industry from absolute prohibition to full legality in the twenty years following the reunification of Germany. The narrative centres on the rise and fall of one man, transitioning from a football hooligan to a large-scale landlord and service-provider for prostitutes, ultimately becoming a man persecuted by those he once trusted.

However, the story also incorporates other voices: many different women who work in prostitution, their clients, small-time gangsters, an ex-jockey searching for his drug-addict daughter, a businessman from the West, a girl forced into child prostitution, a detective, and a pirate radio presenter.

In this ambitious novel, Clemens Meyer pays homage to modernist, East German, and contemporary writers like Alfred Döblin, Wolfgang Hilbig, and David Peace, while utilising his own unique style and almost hallucinatory techniques. Time shifts and stretches, people die and come to life again, as Meyer takes his characters seriously and challenges his readers in this dizzying, eye-opening novel. It also finds inspiration in the films of Russ Meyer, Takashi Miike, Gaspar Noé, and David Lynch.