BERLIN TP (2025)

"Berlin: City of Stones presents the first part of Jason Lutes' captivating trilogy, set in the twilight years of Germany's Weimar Republic. Kurt Severing, a journalist, and Marthe Muller, an art student, are the central figures. City of Stones covers eight months in Berlin, from September 1928 to May Day, 1929, meticulously documenting the hopes and struggles of its inhabitants as their future is darkened by a glowing shadow."

"The people of Weimar Berlin search for answers after the lethal May Day demonstration of 1929. Tension builds along with the dividing wall between communists and nationalists, Jews and gentiles, as the dawn of the Second World War draws closer. The lives of the characters within Lutes's epic weave together to create a seamless portrait of this transitory city. Marthe Muller follows lover Kurt Severing as he interviews participants in the May Day demonstration, but moonlights in the city's lesbian nightlife. Lutes creates a sense of anxiety and imminent doom."

"The third and final act of Jason Lutes' historical fiction about the Weimar Republic begins with Hitler arriving in Berlin. With the National Socialist party now controlling Parliament, the citizenry becomes even more divided. Lutes steps back from the larger political upheaval, using the intertwining lives of a small group of German citizens to zero in on the rise of fascism and how swiftly it can replace democracy. The idle rich, the naive bourgeoisie, and the struggling lower classes: all seek meaning in the warring political factions dividing their nation."