Book of the month 2007

© Suhrkamp

11 September 2001 marks the catastrophic events in New York, but also a fluke coincidence for the young lawyer Jakob, who bumps into his childhood sweetheart Isabelle at a party in Berlin, when he should have been at a meeting in the Twin Towers. Instead of him his college Robert dies, which is tragic, but another fortunate twist for Jakob, as he is now offered Jakob's job in a renowned London law firm. He marries Isabelle, the attractive graphic artist, and the couple – blessed by material wealth, success and destiny – relocates to a Victorian terraced house in Lady Margaret Road.

Here they are faced with drastic social grievances in their immediate neighbourhood: crime, drugs, violence and child abuse. As it turns out, it is not the homeless who are the actual have-nots in Katharina Hacker’s novel, but her two protagonists, who are equally destitute inside, incapable of big ideas and passion, or even some degree of compassion. Their inner numbness and desinterest is most starkly laid bare when Isabelle meets Sara, her neighbour’s daughter, in the back garden, who is abused by her alcoholic parents : “There she lay doubled up with pain. She wore a kind of jogging trousers and over it a t-shirt, not very clean and far too small. Isabelle eyed the strip of child's flesh without any kindness. The garden was strewn with rubbish and old toys, on the patio she could see beer bottles and kitchen appliances, a frying pan, and a bucket." Isabelle takes in the cat and leaves the frightened freezing girl behind; she will not help her: “(…) no point getting involved”.

In the story of Isabelle and Jacob the author brings together different kinds of social milieus and a variety of historical and political references.Jakob is working in a lawn firm dealing with restitution rights, and handles cases of expropriation under the Nazi Regime and during the time of the GDR. ; He is fascinated by his older homosexual boss Bentham. In contrast, Isabelle falls for the violent erotic charisma of Jim, a drug dealer, whose milieu is also illuminated. Meanwhile Britain is preparing for war on Iraq, and in Berlin Jakob and Isabelle’s friends enter into new relationships.

In her novel Kathrina Hacker pans out a broad panorama of figures, scenes and themes, which effortlessly intertwine without any intervention from a single narrator. The story is told – though not always consistently – from the different perspectives of the protagonists. It is hardly the novel's language – often at pains trying to be inartificial, disrupted in its flow, banal – that will convince the reader, but no doubt the multi-stranded, quickening action will fascinate her/him. Almost incidentally the author poses fundamental questions about our generation; questions of loss and responsibility, identity and community. Certainly the book does not pretend to have the answers to these questions. That task falls to the reader, who in the end will be left slightly stumped.

In October 2006 „Die Habenichtse“ by Katharina Hacker was awarded the German Book Prize (awarded for the best novel written in the German language).

TD