The Clown

Editor’s note Heinrich Böll’s 1963 novel is the monologue of Hans Schnier, a clown from a wealthy Rhineland brown-coal family in Bonn, who has just been left by Marie, his partner of six years. She is going to marry a prominent Catholic layman after Hans refused to sign a promise to raise their children Catholic. Drunk, with an injured knee and almost out of money, he spends an evening telephoning relatives and acquaintances. Its attack on the Catholic establishment and on post-war hypocrisy caused an uproar even before the book came out; Böll received the Nobel Prize in 1972.