Teufelssee

It's set in Berlin, and a lot of it is set around gay and queer cruising sites in Berlin.

In particular, uh, one famous spot, uh, Teufelssee in the city's Grunewald Forest, where the book's main character, who is unnamed throughout the whole book, sees this handsome man in the woods who looks identical to his former lover, but his former lover has been dead for years.

So he tells his friends about it, but no one believes him.

So Jordan Tannahill came into our Toronto studio to talk about the book, the surprising reason he's drawn to telling stories about that feeling you get when no one believes you, and why the trick to success is to not get too professional.

Sure.

I mean, it really is kind of the solicitation of sex, anonymously more, more often than not, in semi-public places or public places.

And so in this case, Teufelssee is a small lake in the Grunewald, which is this large forest on the western outskirts of Berlin, and the forest around this lake has been a cruising site for generations, dating right back to really before the time of the Kaiser, actually.

And, and, uh, the entirety of the novel really takes place in the cruising grounds of this, this site.