Remarque’s early novel, in which he only begins to grasp the main themes that later become key to his work…
Racers. Men living on adrenaline.
They are the idols of high-society beauties. They earn big money and risk their lives. But in reality, the helmets of the “kings of auto racing” hide tired faces of the classic representatives of the “lost generation,” who never managed to recover from the nightmare of the First World War.
This novel was called by Erich Maria Remarque a book “about first-class radiators and beautiful women.”
Its setting is the European racing highway in the 1920s; its heroes are young people who, in extreme amusements at the best resorts of the Old World, search for the lost taste for life—while half of Europe is still smoking among the ruins after the First World War.