Die Blaue Laterne V1-2: Berliner Roman (1908)

In what should be called a fictional reminiscence, A Remarkable Collection of Angels takes as its subject the year 1954 in San Francisco. The action and characters, emanating from the intersection of Fillmore and Filbert Streets in that city’s Marina District, point backward to the beginning and forward to the conclusion of the 20th century, serving in that respect as a microcosmic history of the United States in that period, treated with humor and humanity. Some have called it a year in which nothing happened. Indeed, it was itself an intersection at which the past was colliding with the future in terms of politics, religion, art, popular culture, and civil rights in America. The twelve months chronicled in the novel reflect the age-old cyclical struggles within a society as the narrator describes, from the point of view of the ten-year-old he once was, a critical year for him as well as his nation, a year in which something clearly happened.