House of Lust or The School of Mischief

Palermo, in the catacombs: "Beautiful as the moths and the deep-sea fish", the embalmed body of two-year-old Rosalia Lombardo rests in a glass coffin while her unredeemed soul wanders the globe, finally ending up in...

...Vienna, meeting-place of a peculiar cast of characters: Pasqualina, who wants to scatter her father's ashes around one of Vienna's main squares. Crazy Gloria, who hoards money and even skimps on toilet paper to save a few pennies. Sweet Conchita, lured to Vienna by good-for-nothing Manker and now in risk of being evicted. Manker himself is a friend of journalist and eulogy writer Zsmirgel who has but to think of an obituary to make its effects felt on his living subject. Zsmirgel's prophetic gifts are envied by Elvira Klappbauch, the daughter of the woman whose body Rosalia's soul entered into many years ago. How these characters are connected, how their paths intertwine, how Rosalie suddenly begins her ascension to heaven in front of a cash machine - all of this is detailed by Franzobel in a masterful farce, a veritable fireworks of wit and language.

"An opulent, entertaining and, at times, anarchic narrator." (Frankfurter Rundschau)