Yes I've read it and it is excellent. Takes place in divided post war Berlin as people recover from the fall of Nazi Berlin and witness the rise of the Iron Curtain.
Liked it better than Kanon's 'Instanbul Passage', which was pretty good.
The parallels are of no significance. American history and philosophic profile is totally different from 1930's Germany. The Progressive left in the USA is shrewder, generally appealing more to the intellectual class. The far right is fractured a…