The Mann family romance is among the tragic real-life soap operas of the century, a large-cast drama of genius, talent, fame and infamy, fraternal hatred, rocky and rock-hard marriages, open and covert sexual deviancy, secrets and suicides. It provided material for Thomas, Heinrich, Erika and Klaus Mann's novels and plays, and for plenty of biographies and psycho-literary studies besides. Golo Mann is the third of Thomas and Katja Mann's six children. He was born in 1909 and must have been the model for the little boy nicknamed Beisser (Biter) in his father's comical and touching novella Unordnung und Frühes Leid ('Early Sorrow') - which, he says, 'others greatly admired but I found embarrassing'. Graceless, bumbling Beisser is outshone by his flower-like sister Lorchen, who has stolen their father's heart with her pretty ways. Beisser suffers from terrible rages and is made to stand in a corner where he screams and screams until he turns blue. The nanny thinks he is having a fit, but it's only the blue nursery distemper coming off on his wet cheeks. Golo Mann quotes his mother's diary on the subject of himself as a small child:

LRB 7 February 1991 | PDF Download