A mother whose pessimism has a seductive pull. A father who obfuscates when asked to talk about himself. And a supposed house of misfortune that it is finally time to leave behind. Miriam Böttger’s ludicrous, tragicomic, and enigmatic novel is for anyone who also struggles with their family.
“Every family is actually a sect in itself, with some special idea or delusion around which everything revolves,” muses the first-person narrator in Miriam Böttger’s novel. “Often these are obvious things like the children’s genius, academia, money, fitness, social status.” Sometimes, however, they are also absurdities. Her family’s idée fixe is the conviction that they will only ever have bad luck in life, the assumption of a familial predisposition to misfortune. And the physical manifestation of this idea is the family house, which may look bright and innocent to others, but which (they all agree) has prevented its inhabitants from living their full life for decades.
The parents’ decision to finally give up the house and move into a smaller apartment should come as a relief. But no sooner is the house sold then they see this “magnet of misfortune” in a completely new light. As moving day approaches, the father’s daily telephone reports to his daughter become increasingly bizarre. And she realizes that what’s at issue here isn’t the move, but something else entirely.
