After Süskind had written Perfume about a serial killer in 1985,[1][2] and The Pigeon as a kafkaesque story in 1987, he turned to a boy's childhood memories in Die Geschichte von Herrn Sommer.

Die Geschichte von Herrn Sommer is told in the first person by a man aged around 40, remembering growing up in a fictional village in Germany after World War II.

[8] He remembers living away from other children, being attracted to his classmate Carolina, and enduring piano lessons that he reached riding his mother's bike, too large for him.

[8] The narrator meets an unusual man, Herr Sommer, who is described as from the same village where the boy lives but on restless permanent wanderings (Wanderschaft),[10] from early morning until late at night.

The first occurs during a terrible storm and hail when the boy and his father, returning from a horse race by car, offer him a ride, and he utters the only spoken phrase quoted in the book: "Ja so laßt mich doch endlich in Frieden!"