Jan Ahlers is 17 years old. He lives with his grandmother in Hamburg, works in construction, and is dissatisfied with himself and the world. "Everything is just always a dog!" is one of his favorite sayings. The story begins in 1960 and unfolds a broad milieu: Bundeswehr soldiers, a social worker, a Frenchman, communists, a gangster boss, a doctor, an NDR journalist... "This novel is the first complex narrative realization of resistance, protest, and the will for change, as they emerged in the 1960s in the Federal Republic." (Heinrich Vormweg) In "Kalte Zeiten" (1965), Christian Geissler tells a day in the life of Jan Ahlers. With "Das Brot mit der Feile" (1973), the perspectives and tone in Geissler's prose change. Ahlers finds himself in the midst of political upheaval. The afterword by Ingo Meyer establishes the literary-aesthetic profile.