A good story but with weakness in the characterisation for me. Dieter in particular seems almost a caricature, with his behaviour in the 70s section of the book being handled so lightly with little other explanation than “that was how Dieter was”. I found this a little frustrating as he’s such a key character. Likewise Margot, who seemed so lightly sketched. I did like that the story was told in flashbacks and flash-forwards, but I felt that “the secret” was handled in a way that diminished its importance to the story.

I was impressed by the description of Germany in the time of the Russian occupation. It brought back vivid memories of my own time living in the former East Germany. A beautiful and lyrical novel about the ties of family.

This book is very slow-paced and jumps from one character to another, one time frame to another. This is a common enough vehicle in writing now, but for some reason I just didn't find it engaging. Perhaps if I knew more about German history, it would have held my interest better. I didn't especially care for any of the characters and just couldn't get myself to care much what happened to them. I'm sure I'll be in the minority. I can see the value of the writing and that the book will appeal to many people. Just not to me.

This character-driven family drama had promise, but it lacked the unputdownable quality of my favorite character-driven novels. Diehl was compared to Meg Wolitzer and Maggie Shipstead, but I found the beginning of the story more reminiscent of The Age of Light (my review)…and the writing reminded me of Mary Beth Keane’s in Ask Again, Yes (my review). The story is told in alternate perspectives (Louise’s, her current husband’s, and her daughter with her ex-husband’s). I enjoyed seeing the ramifications of WWII on regular German people…and how it impacted their lives even decades after it was over. But, this story really needed more propulsion. I felt myself wondering why I should care about these people and what happens to them…and caring about the characters is key to a successful character-driven novel. And, the ending wasn’t really an ending. It just kind of petered out. While this novel didn’t fully work for me, I did really love Diehl’s writing style and will be interested to see what she does next.

Last year I read a book about swimming and Berlin and hydrology and the nuances in the German language, and it was like it had been written just for me.

Lifelines by Heidi Diehl is about the German psyche (their collective grief and shame), Düsseldorf, and urban planning. Another book written just for me?

Lifelines is also about music and art, the 1970s, what is expressed and what is left unsaid, and how we fit into our environment.

Moving between Düsseldorf in 1971 and Oregon in 2008, the story follows Louise, who arrives in Germany to study art. In Düsseldorf, Louise meets Dieter, a mercurial musician, and they soon begin a relationship. However, an unplanned pregnancy, their hasty marriage, and the tense balance between Louise's art and Dieter's music, takes a toll, driving Louise and baby Elke back to America.

By 2008, Louise has remarried, to an urban planner named Richard, whose research interest is desire lines. When news comes of Dieter’s mother’s death, Elke asks Louise to accompany her to Germany for the funeral. It's Louise's first visit to Germany since she left Dieter, and the trip forces her to reflect on the choices she made.

I enjoyed so many elements of this novel. Although I haven't been to Düsseldorf, the story sparked my own memories of being a foreigner living in Germany - the unwritten rules at the public swimming pool; the cordoned off grass in parks; the alien (but delicious) bread; the small dish on shop counters for your change - I could go on, but needless to say Diehl has nailed the detail in this book, creating an authentic and seamless sense of time and place.

Without spoilers, Diehl examines the collective grief of Germans living in the decades after WWII. This was finely done, her observations astute. What particularly impressed me was how she captured the fact that this grief is an ever-present thing, humming in the background even for those not alive during the War.

"You can't compare terrible with terrible. It's different. It's easier to be an American."
"Maybe," she said. "It's all I know."
"And being German is all I know. We have to pretend we don't have any history, when actually we have too much history."

I was acutely aware of this when I was living (briefly) in Germany in the eighties, and it's something I have observed each time I have visited since. Much has been written in novels about the inter-generational trauma of the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective, however less often do we read about it from a German perspective. Diehl captures the complexities of their shame.


"You'll hear the denial in the way people talk," Dieter continued. "They say, after what happened, or before it ended. They can't even say the real words."

Diehl layers a number of themes in this story. There is much to be said about whether we lead with our heart or our head, and the parallel stories of Richard's 'desire lines' research and Louise's ongoing art projects provide a wonderful vehicle for this. Diehl also draws attention to the burden of secrets - how carrying information effects us in different ways, and how knowing particular things comes with a sometimes unwanted responsibility.

...wearing down a path better suited to their needs. Footsteps caused erosion; Richard liked how direct it was. Unconsciously, people were more assertive than they ever could be in the rest of their lives.

Lifelines is engaging, interesting and written with such insight and sensitivity. I'll look forward to more from Diehl in the future.

I received my copy of Lifelines from the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4/5 An impressive debut.

Moving back and forth between the 1970s and 2008, this is the story of a family split by so many things. Louise moved to Germany from Oregon in 1971. She's a painter and she fell in love with Dieter, a musician. She left, though, when a secret was revealed, taking their daughter Elke with her back to Oregon, where she remarries = to Richard, and has another daughter Margot. Then , Elke asks Louise to go to Dusseldorf with her for her grandmother's funeral. Whew. Everyone in this novel is somehow related to the arts, either visual or aural. The characters are well drawn, the locales well described, and the plot nicely fashioned. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This doesn't sing but it's a good read.

What a great book! The story of a woman in late middle age, recently laid off, forced to confront the choices she's made, it is a truly wonderful story about character. I loved traveling back and forth between Louise as a young art student in a new setting-- particularly this new setting, a Germany still very much in recovery-- and her current life. This is a beautiful debut. I'm so looking forward to what Heidi Diehl does next.

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the opportunity!

I absolutely loved this book. It follows Louise in 1971 when she was a young art student in Düsseldorf and fell in love with Dieter and Louise in 2008, long-divorced from Dieter and traveling back to Germany with their daughter for her former mother-in-law's funeral. We get to see Louise and Dieter meet and fall in love in a Germany still grappling every day with the war. We get to follow along as Louise relives everything that happened in her messy relationship with Dieter, the birth of her daughter, and how she came back to live in Oregon and remarry and have a second daughter. We also get to know and see things from the perspectives of Elke, Louise and Dieter's daughter; Richard, Louise's current husband; Margot, Louise and Richard's daughter; and to a somewhat lesser extent, Dieter, who now lives in New York. But this is really Louise's story, her memories and regrets, about being 60 and recently laid off and not knowing what's next, about her relationships with her daughters and her husband, and about being an artist. It's not about plot, just character. Again, I loved it.

I'm seeing Heidi Diehl compared to Meg Wolitzer, and I agree that if you like Wolitzer's work you'll probably like this book, too. This does have a similar mood to The Interestings, though the stories and characters are quite different. I think I like seeing young characters develop into middle age and older, and when a writer can capture the subtle ways we change and how we stay the same over time, it really works for me. Both Diehl and Wolitzer do this, so if this is your jam, I highly recommend it!

For some reason, I was unable to connect to the characters in this novel. Diehl creates a plot where Louise returns to Germany for her mother in laws’ funeral, but somehow doesn’t just create a venue for Louise to reflect on her memories, but brings together all the characters from her past as well as present life.

There were simply too many people floating around, many just names which I found confusing. There wasn’t significant character development for many of the people who floated through the book.

I definitely did not find the book engaging.

LIFELINES draws the reader into the life of Louise and her family. The story is told in chapter narrates by the different member of Louise’s family, takes place in Germany and the United States, and is set on the early 1970s and 2008.

There are so many things I love about this book, the back and forth of the storyline especially. A portion of the family’s history is presented as a story or memory, and then one of the character begins to tell the story from their perspective back when it was actually occurring.

Beautiful character development and artistic details from the point of view of the painter (Louise) and the musicians (Dietrich and Margot). I would love to have had visuals for Louise’s art work and sound recordings of Dietrich and Margot’s music. The descriptions for both were excellent and made me want to see and hear what was being described.