1040
April 17, 2024

Book tip: "Panic Heart" by Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre

A life confession in the form of a book is dangerous. The line between self-adulation and self-humiliation is extremely narrow and slippery. Many writers have crashed while attempting to raid him and succumbed to their literary injuries. After that, nothing is the same as before, the soul just lies and the author quickly lands on the public pillory. Or in the writer Olympus, as the case may be. I am pleased as a reader, when authors draw blank, I have a soft spot for human abysses and the other side. That's when the book came to me panic heart by Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre just right, it provides more than enough of both. A piece of literature like a drug trip, fast, ecstatic and constantly in danger as a horror trip to end. But Stuckrad-Barre has got the curve, in life as in the book. Although with screeching tires and a little sheet metal damage here and there, but everything else would not be fair to the Enfant terrible of German pop literature.

Go to content

In panic heart Stuckrad-Barre tells his life, nothing more, nothing less. That does not sound very exciting at first, but what flies to the inclined reader over 500 pages around the ears, is unparalleled. With a few strokes Stuckrad-Barre sketches his childhood in a Protestant pastor's family in the northern German province. He does not lose himself in tedious details, thank God. The description is just detailed enough to make his burning desire for an escape from the supposed family idyll comprehensible. Here Stuckrad-Barre also picks up the thread that runs through its entire history like a, uh, red thread.

Stuckrad-Barres' thread is Udo Lindenberg. Does anyone remember? The ever-murmuring panic rocker with hat, sunglasses, green socks and a taste for distilled drinks? These are Udo's songs that infect young Benjamin with a longing for freedom and freedom. They not only shape his musical taste, it is about an attitude to life, an attitude. THIS is the world Benjamin wants to live in. The promise of freedom of the Port of Hamburg and the wicked red light district of the Reeperbahn become his longing goals. That Udo in persona should later become Benjamin's lifeline, the boy from the province does not suspect here yet. As well as? His world is light years away from that of the German rock star.

What follows is an insane rollercoaster ride. Stuckrad-Barre begins to write after graduation for the music magazine Rolling Stone. There it is, the foot in the door to showbiz. He meets stars and starlets, has access to the legendary backstage area and conducts interviews with the greats of the music scene. A fast and superficial world, constantly driven by cocaine and alcohol. As a true addict, Stuckrad-Barre jumps on the drug express and lives as if there was no tomorrow. And that is just the beginning. What happens after that goes beyond the bounds of this review. Therefore, only so much: always, if you think while reading?But it can not get any worse?, it will be just that: worse. In the abyss, new abysses open up. ?When I awoke, it took me awhile to establish a connection between the time-of-day indicators visible through the curtains and the last-remembered time of day, distinguishing only between light and dark, day and night. Sometimes I slept for 26 hours, sometimes only two, it was not so clear and it should not be.?

All this Stuckrad-Barre writes years later, sober and in exile in California prescribed by Udo Lindenberg. He goes with Thomas Gottschalk to a concert of the Beach Boys (who all hate water and surfing), meets Courtney Love at the hotel pool and his writer idol Bret Easton Ellis in his house. The fact that even dead people like Kurt Cobain and director Helmut Dietl turn up does not really surprise you anymore. To say it with the stolen words of a literary critic of Der Spiegel: The book is cool.

To the author

Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, born in 1975, was considered a literary wunderknabe at an early age. After his time as music editor at Rolling Stone he worked as a product manager at the record label Engine Music and as a gag writer for the Harald Schmidt Show, At the tender age of 23, his debut novel appeared Solo albumwho made him overnight the most popular Popliteraten Germany. His life in the fast lane was fruitful, but also resembled a large-scale long-distance suicide attempt (read all in panic heart). Stuckrad-Barre now lives clean and abstinent with wife and child in Berlin. panic heart will be on view as a play in the Berliner Ensemble from February 2018.