I Wish I Had a Maserati

The New Yorker from September 24 contains Maxim Biller's short story "The Maserati Years." Biller is considered a German writer even though he was born in Prague and lived there for the first ten years of his life before moving to Deutschland. He wrote "The Maserati Years" in German before it was translated to English. The story is about a man who wakes to find that his girlfriend has made the house extremely cold and she tells him that he got her pregnant. He also has text messages from his boss telling him that he better get to work or else. He could care less about the freezing house, his pregnant girlfriend, or his job. All he can think about is his Maserati. They cost tens time more than your average car and he can't help but think that he is going to have to sell it because his girlfriend is pregnant. He frets all day over this and in the end, she isn't pregnant. Biller, I thought, wrote the story very well. He kept everything about the story in the same mood. The room was freezing cold, he was depressed at the thought of selling his car, and his boss was pissed at him. Everything was in a bad state for the main character throughout the whole story. I enjoyed the story. It was short and sweet and that's what I like.