Solution 257: Complete Love

Ingo Niermann’s provocative new novel imagines a Berlin alternative to the activist occupation of public spaces in 2011. The completists, gathered at Alexanderplatz, aspire for justice through intimacy. They believe that only when the redistribution of material wealth includes equal chances of finding sex and love—no matter how elderly, disabled, or ugly you are—communism will become real. This volume of the Solution series is a revolutionary erotic fiction. Karl, a freelance writer and young stay-at-home dad in Berlin, first dismisses the completists as a bunch of as fringe weirdos and burnouts. But over the course of one summer day, his outlook changes after a series of encounters both virtual and physical. Contacting him on Skype, an attractive and mysterious stranger tells him she has only three hours left to live. Their video chat starts a game of seduction and intrigue and turns into a vivid debate on the decorum of modern relationships and fantasies. Instead of satiating him sensually and emotionally, Ava enlightens him about the real completist challenge of justice through sex and intimacy. Karl must join ranks with disabled sex-rights activist Oskar Patzer before his day’s journey—culminating in an improvised public orgy prefaced by a choreographed group performance—can indicate the possibilities for completing love.