The Lenobel Siblings

Where is Robert Lenobel? Has he really gone crazy? Hanna, his wife, is convinced he has. But Jetti knows him better – after all, as his sister, she’s known him all his life. With great narrative skill, Michael Köhlmeier paints a magnificent portrait of our time.

In May, Hanna sends an e-mail to her sister-in-law in Dublin saying, “Please come, your brother has gone crazy!” Two days later, Jetti arrives in Vienna. As far as her unconventional family is concerned, anything is possible. Robert has disappeared. But then Jetti receives a message from him: “Please, I’m asking you not to talk to anyone about this! It’s how I want things to be. I am in Israel, the country of the fathers. But it’s not the fathers I have in mind.” Michael Köhlmeier’s gripping novel, which is tragic and funny in equal measure, is the epic story both of a family and an era. In the bizarre, complex life stories of the siblings Jetti and Robert, his wife, their children and friends, Köhlmeier explores what we all carry with us for a lifetime – as only he knows how.