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Elke Heidenreich
»The nice little Thiele Verlag has landed a real hit: Toni Jordan »Dinner with the Schnabels«.
This is the novel.
And it starts off really well: A woman, Tansy Larsen, her name is, sits with a divorce lawyer, a smart lawyer, and asks for advice on what would happen to her in the event of a divorce and what that would look like.
And the lawyer asks: Does your husband know you are here?
And she says: No, my husband has no idea.
And the lawyer noted on her blog: Simon Larsen will fall from all clouds.
That's how the book starts and you know, huh, difficult family!
And now this family will be introduced to us in more detail, the Larsen family.
We get to know Simon as a man who was once really rich.
He had a company, he had employees, he had a fancy car,
was successful and lost everything: composure, company, employees, swanky car.
He had to move out of his villa and now lives with his family and children in a small apartment in some rotten high-rise building.
Everything is cramped - and yet they are all incredibly nice to each other.
And it's funny and it's incredibly lively and there's a lot going on.
But he's a Schluffi, he doesn't get into the hooves, he's not structured.
And now he has an assignment that is even being paid for: his father-in-law has died.
And that's a Herr Schnabel, "Dinner with the Schnabels," and all the Schnabel family hanging around, his horrible mother-in-law and another child from his second marriage, they want to celebrate a funeral service in the garden of an acquaintance, a friend, who has a large garden.
But this garden is completely filthy and our Simon now gets the order to prepare this garden, to plant beautiful plants, to make the beds, to lay new slabs.
And every day he thinks: I have to start today.
And he never starts, there's always something in between.
He's also a real slacker.
I'll tell you only this much: The book has even more surprises.
In the end he makes it and then the dinner with the Schnabels takes place in this very garden.
And we get to know an incredibly exhausting but incredibly likeable and funny family all the time.
It's a bit like Harry Angstrom, remember, The Rabbit Heart novels by John Updike?
And really well told.
And we know all the time about the sword of Damocles, what hangs over him,
because his wife was already with the divorce lawyer.
And one day he finds it too.
In a box he finds this note on which the lawyer has listed what his wife would be entitled to in the event of a divorce.
And it almost breaks his heart, and he doesn't even know why, because he loves his wife.
So, and I'm not revealing how the divorce and all this ends.
Because it's so surprising and so wonderful and so totally unexpected that you'll fall in love with this novel just because of the ending if you haven't already fallen in love with this novel.
We get to know people like from a great movie.
I always thought of Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton.
These are dialogues, it just rips back and forth.
You can see it immediately as a film running in front of your inner eye.
I have long,
since "A Question of Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus, I haven't read such an entertaining novel as Toni Jordan's "Dinner with the Schnabels", published by Thiele Verlag.
Big surprise at the end, no horror, although Simon once said »Dinner with the Schnabels« could also be a title for a horror film.
No, no horror, just love, laughter, great surprise, wonderful book.
So - and I have another novel.
He's calmer, he talks more quietly, but a no less turbulent family.
And in Odessa, an Odessa that no longer exists at the moment because Putin is bombing it to rubble.
And that's why you have a sore chest when you read it.
Where the war is now, there used to be a lively, wonderful city.
»Summer in Odessa« is a beautiful novel by Irina Kilimnik.
Here, too, a turbulent family in a huge old building.
Almost only women, Aunt Paulina, Aunt Ludmila and the mother of the narrator.
The narrator's name is Olga, she is a medical student, studies very listlessly and is very lazy.
All three women have sent their husbands to hell because they are lazy and because they don't need them.
You live with one man, that's your grandfather, a patriarch,
who always cries: For you I would let myself be torn to pieces, for you I would die at any time!
But he doesn't do anything.
He lets himself be taken care of and in the book there is constant shouting in the hallway, people laughing, arguing, making up again.
Above all, there is a lot of cooking.
They always eat things like herrings in a fur coat, whatever that is, borscht.
And it's very turbulent and very, very lively.
And one day a friend of grandfather comes from America and brings a family secret, which is gradually revealed.
Every family has its secrets and it is not always good for the family when these secrets come to light.
All of this is lovingly told.
And when we read about Irina Kilimnik in the summer in Odessa, our hearts tighten because we know
that there will not be such a summer in Odessa this year, and probably for a long time.
All plans for love and life, all families, all large apartments, all grandpas who would let themselves be torn to pieces for their wives - everything was bombed out and sad.
A novel that, despite the temperament with which it tells the story, is quite wistful.
Next time I have another family novel for her too.
One who is very funny and yet very wistful underneath.
From the wonderfully funny, melancholic Adriana Altaras.
We'll do that in two weeks.
And until then, read these two first.”
who would let themselves be torn to pieces for their wives - all bombed out and sad.
A novel that, despite the temperament with which it tells the story, is quite wistful.
Next time I have another family novel for her too.
One who is very funny and yet very wistful underneath.
From the wonderfully funny, melancholic Adriana Altaras.
We'll do that in two weeks.
And until then, read these two first.”
who would let themselves be torn to pieces for their wives - all bombed out and sad.
A novel that, despite the temperament with which it tells the story, is quite wistful.
Next time I have another family novel for her too.
One who is very funny and yet very wistful underneath.
From the wonderfully funny, melancholic Adriana Altaras.
We'll do that in two weeks.
And until then, read these two first.”
