In May 2020 Graham Swift’s short story “The Next Best Thing” was published in the
Telegraph. Set in Germany in 1959, the year part of the action of Swift’s most recent novel
Here We Are(2020) also takes place, the 5800-word story focuses on the encounter between two strangers: a German public servant, Herr Büchner, and a soldier of the British Army, Private Caan. The soldier, who is “currently residing with the British Army of the Rhine”, is looking for news of his Jewish relatives who lived in Germany before the second World War.
In his early forties Amtsleiter Hans Büchner, who “had been a soldier himself”, works as supervisor of the Records department at the Rathaus, the town hall of an unnamed German town; he is “more than twice” the age of nineteen-year-old
1182 words
Citation: Logotheti, Anastasia. "The Next Best Thing". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 September 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=40582, accessed 25 November 2024.]
