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The Merowingians or The Total Family

Heimito von Doderer

Translated from the German by Vinal Overing Binner

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A Sun & Moon title.

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Part of 50: A Celebration of Sun & Moon Classics

The distinguished legacy of Austrian novelist Heimito von Doderer became widely known in the United States with the republication by Sun & Moon Press of his 1956 masterpiece of Viennese life, The Demons, and his earlier metaphysical-mystery, Every Man a Murderer. Now, in another notable literary event, Sun & Moon introduces the first English-language translation, by Vinal Overing Binner, of von Doderer's jarring 1962 satire, The Merowingians or The Total Family, which offers a radical representation of von Doderer's great literary talents.

Re-setting into the 20th century a historical battle in ancient Germany for dynastic control, The Merowingians follows the last of the Merowingian line, Childerich III, as the diminutive, raging nobleman obsessively seeks “continuation of family totalization, centralization and omnipotence” through a complex series of quasi-incestuous marriages and intrigues. Childerich's violent behavior and machinations, inducing both horror and sympathy, take place in a world beset with treachery, lunacy, turmoil, and the grotesque—all depicted by von Doderer in a grandly elegant prose that ranges from the somber to the utterly farcical.

The Merowingians is a mad satire which gives further proof, if any were needed, of the greatness of von Doderer, whose works stand beside those of countrymen Robert Musil and Hermann Broch.