Maike Wetzel Lange Tage (Long Days) S. Fischer Verlag, September 2003. 189 pp. ISBN 3-596-16020-0 'Something funny happened recently. There was no summer, and there wasn't an autumn either.' Maike Wetzel starts her latest collection of short stories with an arresting opener. It's something that the rest of the volume must live up to, and there's no doubt that is does. Wetzel's subject matter is often grim, ranging from car crashes to adolescent anorexia, while her stories focus on characters who lie, cheat and are motivated by selfishness, jealousy or fear. But this is just one way of looking at it. Reading on, you begin to see more, for Wetzel's collection is about love: what makes you love somebody; why; and for how long. These stories are about love between parents and children, between sexual partners, and between siblings. They are even about love for oneself. How can you love someone? How can you trust them? And, if you don't know who you are, how can you hope to know someone else? Wetzel writes equally convincingly whether her narrator is a young girl or an older man. Even more striking is her use of smells, tastes and sensations. You can see the fat dripping off the mother's knife in 'Geister'; you can smell the biscuits strewn with cinnamon and sugar in 'Arme Ritter'. In some of the other stories, the smells and sights are realistically nauseating. Wetzel skilfully succeeds in conjuring up a particular, rather oppressive, atmosphere. Wetzel's characters and settings are thoroughly contemporary, but her stories tap into the great themes of literature. In tales from modern everyday life, she explores questions of identity, role-playing and perspective. The stories are easy to read, but impossible to forget. Maike Wetzel is a talented young author whose writing fascinates and unnerves.