New Books in German Autumn 2023

Swiss author Sarah Elena Müller’s nuanced debut, Picture without Girl, tackles the subject of child abuse from an unusual and...

Swiss author Sarah Elena Müller’s nuanced debut, Picture without Girl, tackles the subject of child abuse from an unusual and thought-provoking perspective. Written in spare prose that implies more than it tells, the novel blends references to myth and superstition with a modern, cinematic treatment. A multi-disciplinary artist who has already received numerous awards, Müller proves herself an original and noteworthy talent.

In five distinct sections, Picture without Girl follows a young protagonist growing up in rural Switzerland. The unnamed girl is fascinated by television and moving images, but her left-leaning parents, a sculptor and environmental scientist, have a deep distrust of the media and are wrapped up in their own worlds. Unable to express herself, the child seeks refuge at the house of her neighbours, Ege and Gisela. Ege is a technology addict, equally cut off from the real world, while Gisela lives largely upstairs and is often away travelling. Ege allows the child to watch as much television as she wishes and invites her to participate in the films he makes.

Here, darker undertones creep into the novel: child abuse is strongly implied yet never made explicit. Müller’s unemotional language and shifting narrative perspectives draw the reader into the story but keep us in a state of uncertainty, reliant solely on our suspicions. Combined with the main characters’ inability to communicate, and their roles as outsiders in a small Swiss village, this cleverly underscore how easy it can be not to act on misgivings, how perpetrators can bend reality to suit their own stories, and how intervention often comes too late or not at all.

Caught between the literal darkness of Ege’s home and her parents’ insufficient attempts to bond with her, the child barely speaks and begins to wet the bed. Her parents turn to a healer for help, while the child herself begins to communicate with the picture of an angel she finds in a book – the figure comes alive in her mind and allows her to have a voice. Emphasising their alienation from each other, none of the characters aside from Ege and Gisela are named, existing merely as social or familial roles (father, child, neighbour, and so on).

Spanning several decades, from the 1960s to the recent past, Picture without Girl tackles other complex issues including climate change, the conflict between agriculture and the environment, and the responsibility of individuals in society. Provocative and engaging, asking more questions than it answers, Müller’s debut is a fresh and compelling novel worthy of much discussion.

Vertigo is a sensational debut about a young woman’s spiral out of control, by Swiss nightclub DJ Saskia Winkelmann....

Vertigo is a sensational debut about a young woman’s spiral out of control, by Swiss nightclub DJ Saskia Winkelmann.

The last term of high school in a small Swiss town brings new beginnings, but a tragic end for the eighteen-year-old protagonist. She lives with her mother, who hardly ever leaves the house. Her refuge is the botanical garden, and she has had no friends since her gerbils died. She is bored, about to graduate from high school, and doesn’t know what to do with herself. Then she meets Jo, and things start to happen. The novel is narrated in the first person and told exclusively from the perspective of its unnamed narrator.

The intense relationship between Jo and the narrator is explored: Jo does not care what others think and is immune to expectations. She dares to do anything. At an illegal basement club and Jo’s family hunting lodge, the protagonist has her first experiences with drugs, electronic music, and sex. A deep friendship develops between the two young women. But then everything goes wrong.

The narrator’s father is largely absent but does provide her with a loft apartment to live in when she moves out of her mother’s house. When she moves there, she loses all sense of a daily routine and spirals into freefall.

At the hunting lodge, while the two girls are high on drugs, Jo drowns. The narrator is taken in by the police for questioning, but as she is cross-examined, she feels utterly detached, as if her body is not her own. She refuses to communicate, feeling cut off from the world. She is then taken into psychiatric care, where she works with a psychiatrist, whom she calls ‘the Queen’, beginning to process what has happened.

This is a book about queerness and the experience of growing up on the periphery of mainstream culture. The narrative does not move forward in a linear way, but flashes back and forth, teasing the reader with slow reveals. There is a growing sense of dread, and the dawning realisation that something is going to go terribly wrong. This is a compulsive, page-turner of a novel, where the reader becomes highly invested in the fate of the characters.

Vertigo is a timeless story of self-discovery and tragic loss bound up with substance abuse and addiction: a coming-of-age narrative with a bitter twist, told with the fresh voice and engaging perspective of a talented new writer.

A work of futuristic literary fiction, Judith Keller’s Wilde Manöver is a tale of female friendship and the transformation of our world....

A work of futuristic literary fiction, Judith Keller’s Wilde Manöver is a tale of female friendship and the transformation of our world. Engaging, imaginative and open to interpretation, it reflects the current conversation on women’s rights while also looking to the future on a broader scale. Keller employs an unusual structure and subtle elements of sci-fi to make this a timely and highly original read.

Wilde Manöver is a story nested within a story: the novel’s outward structure is a piece of historical research being conducted in 2098. The research in question concerns the summer of 2025 – more specifically, a police interview conducted between an Inspector Lombardi and a criminal suspect, Vera Savakis. After a van is stolen in Zurich and apprehended at the Italian border, where it is found to contain a large amount of cocaine, Vera and her friend Peli stand accused of smuggling drugs. The two women admit to taking the van but claim to know nothing about the drugs. Instead, Vera explains, they used the van to steal furniture and ornaments from gardens.

The police inspector is unconvinced; he has evidence that Peli is actually Alexandra Morgane, a former crane driver with links to a drug-smuggling operation. Cranes are indeed a major feature of Vera’s story – she maintains that she and Peli simply go wherever they point – but she continues to proclaim her innocence. As the inspector grows more and more frustrated, Vera’s stories become wilder and wilder. A stolen mermaid, fires in the woods, bicycles arranged in circles on the train tracks, more garden furniture and the assault of a police officer . . . Inspector Lombardi is thoroughly perplexed.

Suddenly, a power cut strikes and Vera disappears from the police station. Three years pass, during which the inspector and Shiva Hirz, an acquaintance of Vera and Peli, try to piece together exactly what happened. This section of the novel is presented as Shiva’s notes, in which she focuses on the signs and symbols that the two women scattered around Zurich. Vera’s entire narrative seems fantastical and hard even for Shiva to believe, until suddenly, in 2028, all the events she described start coming true . . .

Penned with a deft touch and enormous imagination, Wilde Manöver plays with unreliable narrators, plot holes and confusion to keep its readers on their toes. Keller writes vividly about what it is to escape the everyday, about bonds of female friendship and the rapidly changing world we live in. Making a case for fiction being stranger than the truth, this is a bold and extremely readable novel by a standout voice in contemporary Swiss literature.

Women At Night is an evocative, multi-layered novel about mother-daughter relationships and identity, set in the Austrian-Slovenian borderlands. ...

Women At Night is an evocative, multi-layered novel about mother-daughter relationships and identity, set in the Austrian-Slovenian borderlands.

Haderlap’s vivid, wryly humorous prose brings to life the inner worlds of her characters, the setting of rural Slovene Carinthia and its complex past. Protagonists Anni and Mira are a mother and daughter whose relationship is shown in all its glorious contradictions: distant yet intimate, full of tension and misunderstanding, but also love and respect.

Mira’s brother summons her back from Vienna to her home village in Carinthia, on the border with Slovenia. She is tasked with clearing the house where her mother Anni has been living for decades, and with moving Anni into a care home. For Mira, this is a journey into her own past and into a community and identity she has left behind. As she sorts through her mother’s belongings, she finds her own diaries and letters, and goes back over choices she has made: her decision to leave her Slovenian heritage behind, her fraught relationship with Anni, an abortion, and her failing marriage.

Mira embarks upon an affair with her former boyfriend, Jurij, and wonders whether it is too late in life to make a fresh start. Mother and daughter finally confront the defining moment of Mira’s childhood – her father’s death. Mira decides that Anni cannot go into a care home and finds her a small apartment instead. Once the move has been planned, it is time for Mira to return to Vienna. She spends a last night with Jurij, and sets off late, knowing that her husband Martin, who seems to care about all the wrong things, will be furious that she will not arrive in time for dinner. On the drive home she is distracted by a text message and crashes into the safety barrier.

Anni receives an emotional phone call from Martin to let her know that Mira is in hospital and is first terrified, then relieved. There has been no lasting damage. Waiting to move house, Anni starts sketching her memories. Anni recalls her relationship with her own mother, revealing a chain of mother-daughter tensions reaching further back into the past.

Women At Night explores themes of identity and ageing, showing how family dynamics and roles can be perpetuated through time, and revealing opportunities for reconciliation. Anni and Mira’s perspectives build on and complicate each other, exposing misunderstandings between the women, but also similarities and love. The backdrop of Slovenian history adds to the interest of the book.