Karla is going to die. Fred will accompany her. How do you face a woman suffering from cancer, who has at most half a year left to live? Fred thinks he knows. He is a single father who has trained to be a volunteer companion to the dying in order to give his life more meaning. But Karla – strong, brittle and willful – is coming to terms with her imminent death on her own and just wants some human closeness – on her own terms.
When Fred’s attempt to get her to make peace with her past fails spectacularly, he incurs not only her anger, but also the disapproval of his supervisory group from the hospice. Thankfully, he still has Phil, his 13-year-old son, who has been entrusted to look after Karla’s photo archive. When in a critical situation, someone makes the right call, Fred is given a second chance.
In her third novel, Susann Pásztor tells a moving story about the beauty of life – without melodrama and with humor, empathy and a keen sense for human relations.
