Billiards at Half-past Nine

Billiards at Half-Past Nine

First edition
Author	Heinrich Böll
Original title	Billard um halb zehn
Translator	Patrick Bowles
Country	West Germany
Language	German
Publisher	Kiepenheuer & Witsch
Publication date	1959
Published in English	1961
Pages	304

Billiards at Half-Past Nine (German: Billard um halb zehn) is a 1959 novel by the German author Heinrich Böll. The entirety of the narrative takes place on the day of September 6, 1958 but the story stretches back through the use of flashbacks and the retelling of memories of the characters. It focuses on the Faehmel family's history starting from the end of 19th century until the present day of 1958. It reflects the opposition Böll, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972, had to the period of Nazism as well as his aversion to war in general.

Architect Robert Faehmel's secretary, Leonore, describes Robert and the knowledge that something in her routine life is not ordinary. Robert is meticulous in everything he does. An old friend of Robert arrives at the office but Leonore sends him to the Prince Heinrich Hotel where Robert is, daily, from 9:30 to 11:00. Trouble is afoot for the entire Faehmel family, which includes three generations of architects: Heinrich Faehmel, his son Robert and Robert's son Joseph. The man who wants to see Robert is named Nettlinger, but the Hotel bellboy, Jochen, refuses to let the man disturb his patron who is in the billiard room.

Upstairs, Robert is telling Hugo about his life and we discover that Nettlinger was once a Nazi policeman. Robert and his friend Schrella, both of whom were schoolmates with Nettlinger, had opposed the Nazis, refusing to take "the Host of the Beast," a reference both to the devil and the Nazis. Schrella had disappeared after being beaten by Nettlinger and Old Wobbly, their gym teacher, also a Nazi policeman. Nettlinger and Old Wobbly had not only beaten Schrella and Robert, but had corrupted one of Robert's three siblings, Otto, who died in 1942 near Kiev. His mother, Johanna Kilb, is committed to a mental institution because she tried to save Jews from the cattle cars going to the extermination camps. It is now Heinrich's 80th birthday. Heinrich and Robert meet in a bar after visiting Johanna, sitting down and talking for the first time in many years. Meanwhile, Schrella has returned to Germany and talks with Nettlinger, who tries to make amends for his past life despite the fact that he has not really changed, and remains an opportunist. Schrella goes to visit his old home.

We meet Joseph Faehmel and his girlfriend Marianne. Joseph has just learned that Robert was the one who destroyed the beautiful Abbey his grandfather had built and this greatly upsets him. Marianne tells him the story of her own family: her father was a Nazi who committed suicide at the end of the war. Before taking his own life, he had ordered Marianne's mother to murder the children. She hanged Marianne's little brother but the arrival of some strangers prevented her from doing the same to Marianne.