Love has never been so dark, or the end of the world so entertaining – Karen Duve’s new novel is insane, wicked, funny, prophetic and topical
It is 2031 and Doomsday is in the air: A government of women is in power, there are pills for eternal youth, the climate is out of control, religious sects predicting the end of the world are mushrooming, and a class reunion celebrating 50 years since its members left school is to be held in the suburbs of Hamburg. Thanks to the rejuvenation pill Ephebo, to which Sebastian Bürger, among others, owes his good looks, the former classmates, though now senior citizens, look only twenty or thirty. When Sebastian meets Elli, the secret love of his youth, he falls in love with her again.
Everything could be wonderful but for Sebastian’s ex-wife, the former Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation, the Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants and Radioactive Waste Management. For the last two years he has kept her prisoner in his cellar, where she has to bake his favorite cookies and serve him in every way. But now she is an obstacle to his new love.
In trying to get rid of his wife, Sebastian sets off catastrophe after catastrophe…
