Thomas Lang's fascination with Robert Venturi's architectural phantasms (Learning from Las Vegas) and Mike Davis' dystopian visions (City of Quartz) take him to Los Angeles, where urban life here will guide the destiny of his new novel's characters.  His novel Am Seil  - (On the rope; 2006) received the prestigious Bachmann Prize and is published by Verlag C.H. Beck, with his more recent Unter Paaren (2007); his latest novel, Bodenlos (C.H. Beck), was in bookstores February 2010.