SOURCE: Raksin, Alex. Review of The Distant Lover, by Christoph Hein. Los Angeles Times Book Review (2 April 1989): 6.

In the following review, Raksin discusses the emotional self-beguilement of the narrator in The Distant Lover.

“I'm pretty well-liked,” reflects the narrator, a 40-year-old woman working as a doctor in East Germany. “I have plans. … I look younger than I am. … I'm healthy. I've made it. I'm fine.” We're inclined to disagree, for the narrator's urgent, forced tone suggests that this is less an assertion than a mantra, said repeatedly in the hope that the sum of the first five sentences will add up to the sixth, “I'm fine.”

In The Distant Lover, Christoph Hein, a prominent East German novelist, illustrates the errors in his protagonist's emotional math. Showing that she is neither stronger nor happier for the security she has attained, Hein suggests that safety has its risks, too. The...