Nadine Schneider's novel What Truly Matters is a sweeping mother-daughter story spanning four generations, a book about farewells, new beginnings, and the work of life.
It is late summer, and the grapes are ripe in the garden when Christina inherits her grandmother Anni's house. Here, in a small village near Nuremberg, she grew up with Anni: Anni, who fled Romania for Germany in the mid-1960s. Anni, who raised her child and grandchild all by herself, packing boxes for a mail-order giant to survive in a booming post-war economy. Who fought loneliness, poverty, and alienation with tenacity, strength, and a sense of duty. Was this the life she had dreamed of? Or did she miss out on life while living it?
Christina hesitantly says goodbye to Anni and her house. In the quiet warmth of the last days of summer, she sinks deeper and deeper into her memories, comes across surprising finds, and also drives to the now abandoned site of the Quelle mail order center. She has cancelled her planned vacation, and only occasional emails from work reach her. Gradually, she realizes what she really owes her grandmother: the freedom to let go and find the place where the good life is at home.
“This language achieves something: it tells a story that is breathless and yet full of tranquility.”
Zsuzsa Bánk
