As a child in Australia in the Fifties, Katrina Klain is taunted in the playground as a Nazi, long before she knows what the word means. Her German mother and her Austrian father seem to be ordinary people who simply ended up on the wrong side of history, but Katrina yearns to know more about her origins.
Leaving the New World behind as soon as she can, she heads to Vienna, where she imagines her Germanic name will no longer be a burden, armed with what turns out to be an inexhaustible list of questions. Is the sleazy uncle exiled to Spain a crook or a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance? Why does her father insist his brother is dead? And is her cousin in East Germany really a Stasi agent?
Decades later, during a long flight back to Australia, Katrina attempts to reassemble the pieces of the puzzle she has spent so long researching. In her dream-like version of an in-flight movie, a mysterious other-worldly guide seems to know - and have control over - her own future.
Told in a thrillingly inventive narrative style, Sylvia Petter's debut novel is a powerful, pacy tale about making peace with the past, which also paints a richly evocative picture of Central Europe in the early decades after the war.
About the Author
Sylvia Petter was born in Vienna but grew up in Australia, which makes her Austr(al)ian. She started writing fiction in 1993 and has published three story collections, The Past Present, Back Burning and Mercury Blobs. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of New South Wales. After living for 25 years in the Geneva area, where she was a founding member of the Geneva Writers' Group, she now lives in Vienna once more.
Industry Reviews
'A stylistically daring, hurricane-paced and genuinely impressive feat of the imagination' - Billy O'Callaghan, 'A mosaic primarily made of a family memoir, with its mesh of relationships, past and present, the unravelling of decades-old secrets from a Europe that includes Nazi Germany, paced like a thriller. A compelling read' - Meg Stewart, 'Explores truth and memory with a compelling subtlety' - Jason Goodwin, 'Sylvia Petter's language is the star. The prose is stunning, rhythmic and visceral' - Ivy Ngeow, 'A well written, intriguing story that reads like an actual memoir which I thought very clever. I didn't want to put it down' - Over the Rainbow, 'An absorbing, addictive ancestry... As each player in the life drama tells their side of the story, the atmosphere, characters and events of the time come to life' - Jane Hunt, 'I absolutely loved this book. It reaches into the past in an indelible way, blending facts and fiction so skilfully that the reader becomes engrossed' - Lock and Load Brides of Christ, 'A stunningly unusual novel, and the opening left me wondering, captivated, and desperate for more' - Radzy Reviews
