"I am delighted and fascinated by Pauty's clear, analytical, and at the same time highly poetic and wonderfully narrated perspectives on the interplay between society, world- historical events, and the (female) body and its constitution. Individual medical histories are not merely individual, but always also part of a larger structure of history, power, privilege, and environmental influences. This is made clear in this novel in a highly literary way, as rarely before." ―Martina Hefter
"A beautiful, insightful analysis of our oscillation between hope and despair, full of body, full of life, full of linguistic artistry." ―Luca Kieser
Shortlisted for the Austrian Book Award for best debut 2025!
The warm evening light fills the room, she plays with the plastic horses in the hallway. Her mother is lying in the TV chair, not moving, her feet up, not answering. So she goes to the house phone, remembers the number and dials it using the rotary dial. Watch as the elevator doors close with the paramedics and the mother on the cot. – It will be just one of many memories.
She grows up in Tyrol in the 1980s, between snow-covered mountain peaks and the mud-green river that meanders through the city, grows up in the Olympic Village, social housing. Grows up as a healthy body among sick bodies. Grandmother, mother, sisters – illness affects them all. Kidneys, thyroid, allergies, exhaustion, every birth a sacrifice, hysterectomy almost a tradition. The doctors don’t react, they play it down. To protect herself, she alienates herself more and more. And then begins to put everything together, weaving together a family body.
Michèle Yves Pauty tells the story of several women’s lives, tells of the connections between gender, origin, class, education and health; a great, sad and beautiful novel.