Ursula Fricker

Ausser sich

«No, I said, that's not him. As if I had to identify a corpse and as if it was entirely up to my testimony whether my husband was alive or not. I turned around to Doctor Manke. It's not him, I said again, aloud, angry. The telephone rang at the same moment. He had to go now, the doctor said, sorry, be brave. He left.»

It happened on a drive to the countryside, to Mecklenburg. Katja and Sebastian, a couple of Berlin architects, were on a longplanned outing to visit friends for the weekend. Katja was behind the wheel. They had recently been wondering whether they wanted to have a child in their forties – but suddenly things take a different turn.
First they get stuck because of a traffic accident. Then something terrible happens: Sebastian suffers a stroke. A helicopter flies him to the hospital. He is put in intensive care. Several operations are followed by a long period of uncertainty. Katja, the novel's first-person narrator, sits at Sebastian's side and waits for him to come out of his coma. She looks at the machines and the tubes, and when Sebastian finally opens his eyes, she knows he will never again be the man she loved. Sebastian now needs special care.
In this remarkable and skilful novel, Ursula Fricker shows how life can change from one moment to the next. Nothing is the same as before. But the novel also describes deep love. A stroke of fate has forced Katja's life in a different direction. What remains are the memories of a happy, intense time. Memories that bind her to Sebastian. What remains are existential questions about life, human dignity, and the choices modern medicine offers.

(Martin Zingg, trans. by Marcy Goldberg)

Recommended for translation by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia:
www.12swissbooks.ch

Translation of title: Beside ourselves

Rotpunktverlag, Zürich 2012

ISBN: 978-3-905825-17-6