Why Go, Went, Gone is falling short of initial expectations

Unfortunately I have to report that Jenny Erpenbeck's promising and well-intentioned novel, Go, Went, Gone (2015) isn't making good on its initial promise. No doubt it's an stirring and timely depiction of the plight of immigrants and refugees in Europe - focused on a group of refugees from Africa who have temporarily settled in Berlin - and JE does a great job showing the horrors and suffering and mistreatment that these me endure: they have fled horrendous conditions of war at home, have survived a treacherous passage across the Mediterranean, have lived in limbo for months or years in Italy where there is no work for them, and are now encamped in Germany hoping to get work permits - but up against an intransigent bureaucrasy and strange set of laws and agreements that relegate immigrants to the European country where they first set foot - so the men are on the verge of removal back to Italy (no work) while Germany is in need of more workers. Most Americans I think feel remote from the struggles of immigration that are confounding European citizens and cities, and JE's novel if nothing else brings these issues home to English-language readers in a vivid and compelling manner. That said, part of my interest in the novel has been the "lens" through which this story unfolds: Richard, the protagonist, a retired Berlin classics (or so I'm told on the back cover) professor, becomes interested in the refugees and begins a project - w/ no clear end or goal set forth - of interviewing the men, and gradually becomes a friend and supporter of a few of the men. All well and good, but JE does little or nothing with this frame; I'm at least 2/3 through the novel, and Richard has not faced any crisis or issue - he just continues to gather info for his ill-defined project and occasionally to reflect on the loneliness of his own life. I expected there would be some crisis - a fight w/ a friend, a conflict with authority, a conflict w/ one or more of the refugees - that would give some narrative drive to this novel, but at this point I'm afraid it looks like there will be no such development of story arc. As a form of journalism - telling a "true" story via composite characters - this novel has merit, but as a work of fiction it's falling short of initial expectations and missing narrative opportunities.