review
Julia Malik’s ‘I Want You Alive’ is a novel about violence against women, told through its effects on the victim, her best friend, and the perpetrator’s family. It opens on the morning of a preliminary court hearing. The narrator, Jeanne, has spent the previous four months hiding her best friend Selma at a remote lakeside property, after Selma reported Jeanne’s older half-brother, Mischa, to the police for violence against her. During the months in hiding, Mischa has called Jeanne, insisting Selma is mistaken and the situation is Jeanne’s doing.
Jeanne and Mischa are the children of a well-known artist, Hendrik, who was violently abusive towards their mother, Ruth, during their childhood. Ruth now lives apart from the family and speaks mainly in borrowed aphorisms. Jeanne works as Hendrik’s assistant, despite having a PhD in biology. Selma was once an ambitious architect but has surrendered her aspirations in order to be with Mischa. Both women, in different ways, have shaped their lives around a charismatic, dominant man.
The hearing takes an unexpected and devastating turn, which leads Jeanne to cut off contact with Selma. However, she eventually reads a series of emails from Selma, setting out the full extent of Mischa’s abuse from Selma’s perspective. Selma eventually leaves Mischa and considers launching a renewed prosecution; Jeanne, in parallel, resigns as Hendrik’s assistant and considers returning to research.
The novel is narrated in the first person by Jeanne, primarily in the present tense, and opens with a prologue establishing the central relationships between the characters. Jeanne’s account of the present-day story is interwoven with her recollections of earlier events, gradually filling in the family history that lies behind the central crisis. Later in the novel, Selma’s own voice is heard directly through the emails Jeanne reproduces, shifting the narrative from Jeanne to Selma’s account of her experience.
The prose is largely plain and factual, with more lyrical passages reserved for scenes set on a jetty by the lake, which recur at key points in the two women’s relationship and mark shifts in the tension between them. A moment of shared warmth early on later gives way to a scene of anger and estrangement in the same setting. Malik, who is primarily known as an actor, draws characters whose motivations emerge through dialogue and interaction rather than explicit description.
The novel addresses the legal and procedural obstacles faced by victims reporting domestic violence, including the low rate of prosecutions and convictions in Germany. It will appeal to readers of Annie Ernaux, who is quoted at the front of the book, and Ruth-Maria Thomas.
Find out more: https://www.fva.de/Buecher/Alle-Buecher/Ich-will-dich-lebend.html
All recommendations from Autumn 2026