Written by Anna Katharina Hahn, and published in 2020, this hit my radar because I was looking for something to read that was set in Stuttgart, and written by an author from that region. Having decided this title would fit the bill, I couldn't find it online, so I tried a couple of bookshops in Stuttgart while we were visiting. Eventually, a helpful lady in the Oxfam shop turned up trumps, and it cost me just EUR 4.50... (Actually, she found two of the titles I was potentially looking for, and it felt mean to not buy both, so they join the other "real" book that I'd stuffed in my rucksack.)



The title is "Aus und davon" in the original German. A more common expression is "auf und davon" (meaning up and away). And we do indeed encounter many people in this book who have upped sticks and headed out -- either because they just don't feel they can bear to stay, or because they're conforming to the requirements of their family. There's also an expression in German that uses "aus and davon" to express assumption -- to convey that we're working on the basis of something that is understood. And again, Hahn's novel constantly reminds us that everything to do with families is connected, based on something already existing, not independent. My title doesn't catch this double meaning. But the book has not been translated, as far as I know, so I don't know how others would render it.

It's psychologically very interesting. It took me a little while to be convinced, but by the time I reached the end, I realized the story had moved me.

Elisabeth, in her 70s, is going through the wringer. Her husband, Hinz, has suffered a stroke, and although -- or because -- he has made quite a good recovery, he realizes that he needs to be somewhere else. Elisabeth doesn't catch on initially, but she eventually finds out that he also needs to be with SOMEONE else.

Her second daughter, Cornelia, is also at the end of her tether. Missing her Greek husband, Dimitrios, from whom she is now separated, and exhausted by her family commitments and her job as a physiotherapist, she has decided to take off to the United States for a while, leaving Grandma Elisabeth in charge of the two children. There's Stella, the super-beautiful young woman who keeps getting offers from agencies, but who's in love with a Syrian refugee, Hamid, and is heartbroken when his family decides it's best for him to go and live with an uncle in Berlin. And there's Bruno, who has weight-control issues, and hates school because he's bullied so much. To top it all, they live in the east of Stuttgart, an area that Elisabeth has all sorts of prejudices about.

Cornelia's trip to America is partly motivated by the desire to find out more about Gertrud, her grandmother and Elisabeth's mother, who spent some time there working for relatives when her Stuttgart family's fortune collapsed in the raging German inflation after World War I. Gertrud finds a land of plenty, but has to deal with a family tragedy that no-one has warned her about. Cornelia, meanwhile, finds a confusing America, with more poverty than she had reckoned on, a freewheeling relative who doesn't have much good to say about the esteemed grandmother, and -- potentially -- a new love interest.

She comes home, prematurely, after her distraught mother calls her in the middle of the night.


Stuttgart, just last month

So there's a lot going on. Teenage infatuations. The trials of the fat kid. Disintegrating relationships. Regrets, regrets, regrets.

Plus there's the unfolding story of Gertrud, whose struggles continue to play out down the generations, as these things always do. Gertrud had weight issues, too, exacerbated by the cornucopia of food available in America (in contrast with the privations back home). She eventually marries someone she has met on the ship out, and they return to the Stuttgart area. His strict religious nature continues to impact his daughter, Elisabeth, despite her attempts to free herself from such burdens. Gertrud, before Elisabeth is born, occupies herself with looking after the sick, and continues with this vocation even when she has a baby to look after. So Elisabeth grows up with sick-rooms and sick people. Small wonder, then, that she finds it extraordinarily difficult to cope with her sick husband.

Elisabeth is way too like me in some ways... A bit sour, a bit distant, often lacking in warmth... Sometimes this similarity made for uncomfortable reading.



Hahn doesn't attempt to give us a happy ending. Yes, Bruno's relationship with his grandmother seems to have improved over the course of the narrative, and Elisabeth seems to have developed more empathy for her grandchildren. Yes, there may be something in the pipeline for Cornelia; and Stella will no doubt get over her broken heart. But there's not much else to hang onto. We have no confidence that Hinz will come home; Cornelia is obviously still very attached to Dimi; we don't know how Hamid will get on; and though Bruno is temporarily distracted by his adopted cat and her new family of kittens, his problems show no sign of resolution.

There were a couple of things that needed to be pointed out to me by the German reviews I read. About the fairy-tale connection, for example: "As in each of her books, literature is always bubbling away under the surface; this time it's the fairy tales of Wilhelm Hauff and the Brothers Grimm, but also the Fairy Tale of the Big Fat Pancake and Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio. Bruno himself seems to be related to the pancake, and as happens in fairy tales, not only a talking doll crosses his path, but also a number of animals: Pigeons that Hinz breeds in the roof space, a dachshund, and an injured cat. Cornelia, meanwhile, meets a hissing peacock, a turkey, an enclosure full of guinea pigs, and lots of common grackles fluttering around the airport."



I had a few question-marks. Are people really so openly horrible to fat children...? Other kids in school, yes, probably; kids can be really cruel. But random teenagers on the street, or so-called friends of the family? [POSTSCRIPT 11 December: Apparently, the answer is yes...]

I was also not sure about the way Gertrud's backstory is narrated. We see developments through the eyes of her lentil-filled doll, Linsenmeier, who has been handed down from generation to generation until he now belongs to Bruno. I found this mechanism a little contrived... And there's a somewhat heavy-handed analogy, whereby Linsenmeier's lentils end up providing Gertrud with a meal at a time of adversity, and he has to wait many, many years to be restuffed and reinvigorated. All our key characters have been emptied out in some way, so you can see where Hahn is going with this. And it does fit with her fairy-tale motif. But it felt a little strained to me.

At the end of the day, though, this book made me realize again -- as books and films worth their salt always do -- how complex the life of humans is, and how hard we all struggle. Any book that invites you to experience compassion is entitled to a reasonable-sized tick, I think.