This is a story about growing up with the magic and power of music – and a friendship whose intimacy becomes destructive. Sophie Hunger gifts us a tragicomic and sophisticated novel that is as profound as it is poetic, exploring what we must lose in order to become someone.
A girl and her best friend, Nobody. As children of military attachés, they are constantly on the move, always changing locations. Carried by the rhythm of music, they experience the magic and turmoil of childhood and adolescence. Their happiest moments are spent losing themselves in their record collection, re-mapping the world according to band names on an atlas, shouting out decibel levels during piano lessons, or discovering phrases in songs that have always been concealed inside them. They hide in music, and music hides them – but they always have each other.
Then, cracks begin to appear in their friendship. While Nobody becomes obsessed with the folklore of the narrator’s ancestors, the Walser people, and Sophie begins writing her first songs, a catastrophe brews.
