Synopses & Reviews
In this masterful novel, author Juli Zeh skillfully shifts away from the conventional tale of a middle-aged, middle-class father out for a New Year’s Day bike ride to an unexpectedly dark, psychological family drama.
Lanzarote on New Year’s Day: Henning is cycling up the steep path to Femés. As he struggles against the wind and the gradient he takes stock of his life. He has a job, a wife, two children—yet hardly recognizes himself anymore. Panic attacks have been pouncing on him like demons. When he finally reaches the pass in utter exhaustion, a mysterious coincidence unveils a repressed yet vivid memory, plunging him back into childhood and the traumatic event that almost cost him and his sister their lives.
Review
“In this wrenching psychological portrait from Zeh, a character’s buried traumatic past distorts his memory and loosens his grip on reality... Zeh’s novel skillfully asks how a person can come to terms with a painful past that has been intentionally misremembered for the purpose of sustaining one’s mental health. Readers, though, will have no trouble remembering this.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
“This spine-tingler captures the peak of what appears to be a spectacularly hallucinatory middle-aged crisis.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Review
“It is genuinely admirable how, page after page, Juli Zeh manages to develop a truly nerve-racking thriller. Ever changing register, she always starts with questions rising from the conditions of life in today’s society.” DNA
Review
“In this harrowing thriller, Juli Zeh evokes children’s solitude, their panicked fears of abandonment, their incapacity to see their parents as anything but perfect.” Arts Libres
Review
“New Year is an impressively original book whose elegant construction testifies to Zeh’s writerly prowess.” New Books in German
About the Author
Juli Zeh is one of Germany’s most successful authors of both literary thrillers and novels. She studied law in Passau and Leipzig, and holds a doctorate in international law. She has worked at the United Nations in New York, taught at the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig, and currently lives in Brandenburg, where she is an honorary constitutional judge. Her debut novel Eagles and Angels was an international bestseller and was awarded the Deutscher Bücherpreis, and since then her books have been translated into 35 languages. She has been awarded myriad prizes for her work, including the Carl Amery Literature Prize, the Thomas Mann Prize, and the Order of Merit.