And Every Morning, the Sea

Sonja has been the manageress of a hotel on Lake Constance for 30 years; her husband Bruno is its award-winning chef. But now she’s looking down from the cliffs near Abydyr, a remote Welsh village. Will she jump?

Bruno is dead. Was it suicide? Then came the declaration of bankruptcy: the house, just a mountain of debts. Bruno’s brother Arno with his fake smile is ready to sort out the mess – on the condition that Sonja disappears. And Sonja disappears. It always rains in Wales, just like Mr Pettibone warned her, but that’s where she goes anyway. What next? Karl-Heinz Ott tells the story of a woman who seems unable to escape misfortune. True, Mr Pettibone did warn her beforehand bout his run-down boarding house; and about the food, his uncle, and how miserable the country is in general, with its draughty windows and doors, and wasteland all around. But the sea is beautiful! And in any case, isn’t Wales in the rain better than a gourmet restaurant on Lake Constance? In Karl-Heinz Ott’s brilliant, cruel novel, even misfortune has an ironic, snappy appeal.