Oskar Matzerath, a patient in a psychiatric hospital, tells the story of his life. Born in Danzig in the 1920s, he decides on his third birthday to stop growing and takes up a toy tin drum, which he plays obsessively. He also has a piercing voice that can shatter glass. Through his odd, unreliable eyes we see his family, the rise of the Nazis, the war and the troubled years afterward. The novel mixes comedy, fantasy and grim history. It is the book that made Grass famous and remains a landmark of postwar European fiction.