Question

[telophase]

Does anyone here have the paperback or electronic version of Ben Aaranovitch's The October Man? myrialux and I just finished listening to the audio version, and there was one needle-scratch that we're curious about.

The book is set in Germany, but a tattoo shop is described as being across from an African-American hair salon. Er? A case of a copyeditor losing control? Inappropriate localization? Or something else? There's a black character in it who is only described as being black, so it makes that one instance stand out even more.

Comments

[jenett]

I cannot make it give me text to copy and paste quickly, but searching the e-text, there's this (pardon infelicities and typos, the cat is trying to claim my body for the nation of Astra.)

"How did they find him?" I asked.

"The hairdresser," said Vanessa. "Black people need special hair products.

"What kind of hair products?" I asked, but Vanessa didn't know.

"It was Ziegler's idea," she said. "She's married to an American pilot, a black guy. They have two daughters, and she buys their hair products from that shop opposite the tattoo studio. She says there aren't that many places to buy things in the city, so she checked to see if someone had popped in to make a purchase aroudn the time that Jörg Koch was getting his tattoo."

[telophase]

I remember that part--it occurred a bit later than the African-American mention, which happened when the protagonist first visited the tattoo studio.

[jenett]

A little more hunting got me:

"Somebody would already be heading for the flat, just as somebody else would be checking for witnesses in the African-American hairdresser's opposite and the internet cafe next door."

The only other "African" is talking about the friends who came in when Jörg got the tattoo:
"One of them was black," he said. "African, I think."
I asked whether he had an accent
"Didn't notice," Gaston said, "But he sounded like he was from Hamburg."

[athenejen]

I have the US hardcover published by Subterranean Press; the line you mention is on page 60, and it's exactly as jenett has quoted in the comment above. It would be interesting to find a UK version to see if it's the same or not.

[golden_bastet]

While I haven't read the book, I have been in Germany, and I think it was there that I saw a lone African-American hair salon (or at least hair supply; it's been a while). I figured it serviced a foreign population (like the US soldiers stationed in West Germany back in the day) and I was pretty sure it was the only one around.

So it's possible, though not the norm.

That said, the book sounds kinda funky. I'll have to check it out.

Hopefully the mention had something to do with the story! :-)

[selenite0]

I'd expect to find such near the US bases. There were >400,000 troops in Germany during the Cold War, down to 60,000 now.