review
Krien’s beguiling love story is racy yet controlled. An authentic voice, she describes perfectly the shame, confusion and growing maturity of sixteen-year-old Maria.
Moving in with her boyfriend’s family, Maria helps out and becomes accepted but has no clear sense of direction. When forty-year-old Thorsten Henner appears – hard-drinking and rugged, from an old family scarred by history – she initially sees him as a menace. But she soon finds herself making excuses to spend more and more time with him. Henner’s love is manifested by both animal violence and unexpected sensitivity, and the two create a plausible domesticity. Distinctive style, universal theme.
All recommendations from Autumn 2011