Colm Tóibín’s newest novel opens in a provincial German city at the turn of the twentieth century, where young Thomas Mann is growing up with a conservative father, bound by propriety, and a Brazilian mother, alluring and unpredictable. Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. Winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize, Mann is also a public man whose private life remains secret. More at the link.