Review: The Inheritance – Peter Stephan Jungk

Imagine an elderly uncle dying in Venezuela leaving you his fortune. You fly to Caracas to tie things up only to discover that your uncle has appointed as executor of the will, a businessman you have never heard of before, who professes a desire to settle things as quickly as possible but then adopts every tactic in the book to prevent you inheriting. That is the basic plot of The Inheritance, and it is executed with great style and panache by its author Peter Stephan Jungk.

Daniel Loew is a published poet, totally committed to his art despite the financial constraints such a life brings. He lives with his wife and their baby in London, but he seems to be unable to let go of his vocation as a poet in order to take a job that might enable them to live more comfortably. Then word comes that Daniel’s Uncle Alexander has died in Caracas and made him sole inheritor of his estate. Daniel begins a quest for an elusive fortune, which dangles before him like a ripe fruit, always just out of reach however many steps he climbs to pluck it.

Daniel flies to Caracas only to discover that things are not as they might seem. For Uncle Alexander has appointed as executor of his will, one Julio Kirshman, a highly dubious businessman who seems to have other motives than ensuring that Daniel gets the considerable fortune owing to him.

The book is set in 1992 when Hugo Chavez attempted to overthrow the government by coup d’état. When Daniel arrives in Caracas, the coup is underway and jet fighters thunder over his hotel and rebels attempt to storm the presidential palace. Daniel is confined to his hotel while the fighting goes on, eventually managing to get out to meet the executor, Julio Kirshman, at his offices. Kirshman owns a flourishing import/export business, but is strangely evasive about the will, while claiming to be Uncle Alexander’s closes friend:

This is where I always used to sit, next to your dear uncle, when I visited him. I was the only one he wanted to see, the only one he allowed to come near him, those last years of his life – it was me he turned to for help, me he used to call in the middle of the night, over all sorts of nonsense, he wanted to see me, because he was frightened. Just me. . . And where were you all the time? Did you ever come to see him?”

Clearly this is not going to be a simple business!

The Inheritance is an evolving story with many twists and turns. It doesn’t take much imagination to realise that the legal system in 1992 Caracas is complex, relying on who you know, and often with the possibility of “gifts” being necessary to help things along. Daniel finds that the wheels of justice grind very slowly, and even when he hires his own lawyers, he is by no means certain that they are as single-mindedly pursuing his interests as he would like.

Daniel and Kirshman are both Jewish but their shared faith only goes to complicate matters. There is a professed brotherhood between them due to their religion and a community of people in the synagogue who Daniel finds difficult get on his side. Everyone seems to want matters settled equably but it is not clear that they share the same views of who is in the right. It seems cut and dried to Daniel, but there are always other considerations that come in to muddy the waters.

Daniel’s Uncle was partly to blame of course. Through a series of flashbacks we read accounts of Daniel’s visits to his Uncle when he was in Europe, and is it clear that Uncle Alexander expected much more from Daniel than the two or three days he occasionally spent with him. Perhaps Julio Kirshman really was a better support in his latter years than his own family? Did Uncle Alexander appoint him for the sole reason of dangling a fortune before Daniel’s eyes and then making it so difficult for him to finalise his inheritance?

The complexity of the situation increases as the book goes on. Daniel finds weeks stretching into months, and he finds himself travelling to America and Panama to try to bring matters to a close. The stress begins to effect changes in Daniel’s personality, and the non-materialistic poet begins to finds that he is more interested in money than he had ever imagined.

I greatly enjoyed this book. It is complex, clever, and also funny. The reader is easily drawn into the labyrinthine processes of Venezuelan law where who you know is more important than the rights or wrongs of your case. It is as much about the psychology of greed as about the convoluted processes surrounding the inheritance. The author lets us embark on a long journey with Daniel and we find ourselves rooting for him while also seeing a bigger picture that he is largely blind to. The Inheritance is a vivid and colourful novel, satisfyingly complex and unlike many books, more interesting the further you get into it.

Book page on publishers website

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