Bøger af Anke Stelling

“Vi havde aftalt, at vi ikke ville være som vores forældre. Vi ville beskytte hinanden mod at blive fornuftige (forstået som hensynsløse), mod at blive voksne (forstået som udbrændte), mod at blive gift (forstået som spærret inde) og mod at blive forældre (forstået som bedrevidende).” Resi er vred. Forældre og venner, talemåder og reklamer: Alle har bildt Resi noget ind. Nu vil hun ikke leve efter andres normer længere. Hun vil afsløre middelklassens hykleri og sørge for, at hendes datter kan gennemskue de løgne, hun ikke selv gennemskuede. Intet er helligt for Resi: Hverken venskab, partnerskab, forældreskab eller køkkenskab. Sandheden skal frem. Men det koster. Højt på strå er en vilter og vred bog om at stå midt i livet og opdage, at ingenting er, som man troede. Og om at prøve at forstå, hvorfor det er nemmere at svigte sine idealer end at realisere dem.

You only have yourself to blame, you might say, but that's not true. Some decisions take you down one path, and others another ... It's all about power. Resi is a writer in her mid-forties, married to Sven, a painter. They live, with their four children, in an apartment building in Berlin, where their lease is controlled by some of their closest friends. Those same friends live communally nearby, in a house they co-own and have built together. As the years have passed, Resi has watched her once-dear friends become more and more ensconced in the comforts and compromises of money, success, and the nuclear family. After Resi's latest book openly criticises stereotypical family life and values, she receives a letter of eviction. Incensed by the true natures and hard realities she now sees so clearly, Resi sets out to describe the world as it really is for her fourteen-year-old daughter, Bea. Written with dark humour and clarifying rage, Anke Stelling's novel is a ferocious and funny account of motherhood, parenthood, family, and friendship thrust into battle. Lively, rude, and wise, it throws down the gauntlet to those who fail to interrogate who they have become.