Everything I Fear Has Already Happened
The first spring spent alone, she thinks of nature as beauty wasted on a dead soul, and stays alive out of sheer politeness.
She can’t bear the idea of spending the rest of her life without someone to curl up to. She makes dating profiles on several apps, the only remaining arena for meeting people in the time of the pandemic. At the same time, she shrinks at the thought of going to bed with an unknown, imperfect body, to showcase her own decline and expose herself to a stranger.
Foreign Sales
Germany, Harper Collins/Nagel & Kimche
«What especially interests me in Wencke Mühleisen as a writer of novels, is how steadfastly she processes and explores the great missteps of life, using the full register of the body to do so; the analytical thoughts, the quivering, horrible feelings and the invigorating lust for life.»
«Spry and philosophical about becoming single as a mature woman and throw oneself into the waters of online dating.»
«This is a deeply existential novel about being an older, abandoned, longing woman. The book is raw, frisky, and rebellious. And, the way I read it, wistful»
«If sexuality and old age is a topic not often discussed, this novel contributes to right that wrong. Mühleisen’s laconic sense of humour fits the topic well, and the story balances elegantly between the hopeful and the tragicomic»