Sensitive, atmospheric, funny – the new book by this author of much-lauded, clever women’s literature.
DAS LIED DES HIMMELS UND DER MEERE
(The Song of Sky and Sea)
by Anne Müller
Penguin Germany/PRH Verlagsgruppe, March 2022
Schleswig, 1872. Emma’s mother is furious when she turns down a proposal from an eligible bachelor. Rather than marry a man she doesn’t love, though, Emma boards the steamship Borussia and emigrates to California. In San Francisco, she accepts a position as companion to a wealthy widow, and soon falls in love with the likeable timber merchant Lars. They get married and plan to start a family, and Emma goes to live with him on Humbolt Bay. Yet their marriage remains childless, Lars is often away on business, and Emma is lonely. When Hans – owner of a shipyard, Lars’s closest friend and best man at their wedding – offers her a position in his office, the two of them develop deep feelings for each other. But there is a love that cannot be.
Touching and refreshing, captivating and with subtle humour, Müller’s novel tells the story of a headstrong young woman who goes against convention, and searches for, finds and follows her own path.
Anne Müller lives in Berlin. After studying theatre and literature sciences she freelanced as a radio journalist before turning to screenwriting. Sommer in Super 8, her first literary novel, found many enthusiastic readers. Zwei Wochen im Juni, her second novel, took her back to her homeland on the Baltic Sea.
I’m all alone now, is Jule’s first thought when her mother dies. But when she goes to sort out her mother’s flat, Jule discovers documents that show she was adopted. Jule never felt properly close to her mother, and starts questioning her whole past: their sudden move to the West, losing contact with her father, her sister’s disappearance and her mother’s persistent silence… What would her life look like today, if she’d grown up with her biological family? Would she be happy? Jule knows that she has to find her birth mother to get answers. But she isn’t the only one who has been looking for them all these years…
‘Boy meets girl’: anything can start with this sentence – there isn’t a story that cannot be brought into the world with it. For Nora, too, a brief encounter changes her life entirely. All of a sudden she realises that she has for too long been a mere visitor in her own life. Now the painful end of her marriage and her ageing father’s increasing helplessness finally inspire her to make changes.
Ines and Kirsten thought they would be best friends for ever. But their friendship is shattered when Ines isn’t there for Kirsten during a desperately difficult time. The two girls never meet again. Now, more than twenty years later, Ines is a working mother and trying her best to live up to the demands she places on herself. When an invitation to a school reunion awakens long-suppressed memories, she is forced to admit that the loss of the friend she once so admired has shaped her whole life. At the reunion, she suddenly finds herself standing in front of Kirsten. But their encounter doesn’t turn out as Ines expected – and she begins to question everything. Are the two women really who they thought they were?
Childhood friends Amalia, Josef, Gero and Bodo are on a summer canoeing trip. However, the moment they arrive at their destination it’s clear that they aren’t welcome. Josef in particular, who is black, senses the locals’ discomfort in his presence. They evidently deeply dislike anything that looks remotely foreign. But should the friends let themselves be intimidated by a few backward provincials? Should they simply give in? Amalia, Josef, Gero and Bodo are determined to stay, and from that moment on there’s no turning back. Every step they take leads them closer to the abyss. They all know that this trip won’t end well, but none of them wants to admit it. Soon their summer adventure becomes a desperate effort to get out of this place alive.