Book quote
“Eat, sleep, love, read, work. It is not more than that. And it is still everything.”
Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything
“Essen, schlafen, lieben, lesen, arbeiten. Mehr ist es nicht. Und es ist doch alles.”
Irgendwann werden wir uns alles erzählen
Blurbs
Love in five acts
Bookseller Paula has lost a child, and a husband. Where will she find her happiness? Fiercely independent Judith thinks more of horses than men, but that doesn’t stop her looking for love online. Brida is a writer with no time to write, until she faces a choice between her work and her family. Abandoned by the “perfect” man, Malika struggles for recognition from her parents. Her sister Jorinde, an actor, is pregnant for a third time, but how can she provide for her family alone?
Love in Five Acts explores what is left to five women when they have fulfilled their roles as wives, mothers, friends, lovers, sisters and daughters. As teenagers they experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall, but freedom brings with it another form of pressure: the pressure of choice.
Punchy and entirely of the moment, Love in Five Acts engages head-on with what it is to be a woman in the twenty-first century.
Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything
It is summer 1990, only months after the border dividing Germany has dissolved. Maria, nearly seventeen, moves in with her boyfriend on his family farm.
A chance encounter with enigmatic loner Henner, a neighbouring farmer, quickly develops into a passionate relationship. But Maria soon finds that Henner can be as brutal as he is tender – his love reveals itself through both animal violence and unexpected sensitivity. Maria builds a fantasy of their future life together, but her expectations differ dramatically from those of Henner himself, until it seems their story can only end in tragedy.
Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything is a bold and impressive debut in which love and violence, conflict and longing, are inextricably entwined.
Muldental
Jeder Umbruch fordert Opfer. Auch eine friedliche Revolution. Daniela Krien erzählt von Menschen, deren Leben an einem Kontrapunkt der Geschichte ins Wanken gerieten. Sie erzählt von Orientierungslosigkeit und tiefer Verzweiflung. Doch diese Romanminiaturen gehen über das Schicksal des Einzelnen hinaus; sie zeichnen ein Bild des Menschen von heute.
Ein Buch über das Trotzdem-den-Kopf-über-Wasser-Halten, über das Trotzdem-Weitermachen, über das Es-trotzdem-Schaffen.
My Thoughts
Does it also happen to you that when the first book by a new author is so good you just HAVE to read more of her work… straight away? This is exactly what recently happened to me. Daniela Krien’s writing has captured my heart. Here is a special post explaining why.
Die Liebe im Ernstfall
What a fantastic book that I recommend to every adult woman!
Five women in their 40s are at the centre of this novel, one after the other given a voice and context and where we see how their lives are intertwined.
The author shows how the characters’ childhood experiences have an influence on later decisions, described sensitively and vividly, and how the dichotomy between a career and the desire to have children, and the need for love is always themes that women rub against and find both happiness and suffering in.
As different as the lives of the five women are, they are united by the sobering experience that every decision has its consequences. Further, the characters are more or less intertwined through friendship, kinship or only from a distance, which gives the general picture a lively network of life and sisterhood. Krien’s language touched me a lot and showed me how inseparable body and soul are. Making decisions is difficult and they never encompass all of a person’s dreams because at different times of their lives women have different priorities and the repercussions are only fully felt later in life.
The Book in three words: compelling, thought-provoking, and empathetic
Muldental
This book has unfortunately not been translated into English but I will still include it in my post today as it stands out as an excellent read alongside the other two books mentioned here.
In ten stories Daniela Krien describes people whose future plans and reorientations are disappointed or completely shaken after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Fates that have touched me are described here emphatically and through deeply resonant voices. A man whose work is no longer needed after reunification feels an emptiness painfully palpable on each page; a woman pushed towards prostitution so she can feed herself and her child is left feeling lost and humiliated when she meets the man again years later; and a mother struggling to understand her teenage daughter’s betrayal while in another story a woman is grieving the loss of her baby – these are just some of the examples of delicately yet honestly written stories that create life like characters I grew to care about.
The Book in three words: emotional, realistic and diverse
Irgendwann werden wir uns alles erzählen
And last but not least I just finished reading Krien’s first book ‘Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything’
Phew, I made it through. I must admit this book was the toughest of the three. Linguistically just as captivating and intimate. I felt like I was there in the East-German countryside, watching the main protagonist cook, read, dream and struggle to find her place in a small community.
In sober, almost sparse language, Krien unfolds an unusual love story between a teenager and a man 24 years her senior and I found much of the descriptions of their sexual intercourse difficult to read, despite the fact that it appears to be consensual. I can’t help feeling that at the age of sixteen you are too vulnerable and inexperienced to know what you want, while in middle age you should know better. Having said that, I do think that Henner knows but is unable to resist Maria’s adulation and attraction and later in the story there is a sense of clear unease when they have to make a decision to coming out with their love affair or not.
The story is told against the backdrop of German reunification. While the GDR is being dissolved, the idyllic Brendelhof with its three generations initially looks as if it came from the pre-war period. At the beginning of events, Maria lives like an outsider in the family, her link being the girlfriend of one of the sons. She develops her permanent place in the family by making herself useful, especially by learning how to cook and make good use of the resources. Maria hides her feelings behind her sober observations, just as she hides her true feelings from the hosts. She is often lost in her current read – Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ and her love for books and how much they fulfil her was where I could most relate to her. The only reason she imagines being interested to learn a trade is to open a bookshop. Other than that, the world opening up around her because of the reunification of East and West Germany seems to leave her untouched.
The Book in three words: challenging, captivating and compelling
Overall, I’m in awe of Krien’s writing, her turn of phrase, her ability to make us care about every one of her characters.
I’d love to know your thoughts on the books if you’ve read them!
About the author
Daniela Krien, born in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 1975, grew up in Jena and in Vogtland. She studied cultural studies, communication and media studies and worked, among other things, as a screenwriter and editor. She lives in Leipzig with her husband and two daughters.
Her new book ‘Der Brand’ is out on 28th July!
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