A Lesser Day

More about the book

In the early eighties East Village, a divided Berlin, and Brooklyn nearing the millennium, this memoir unfolds across two continents, revealing untold stories. In Kreuzberg's cold studios and working-class flats, we encounter Sabine, a resilient mother of four who vanishes, leaving her daughters to grow increasingly wild; Martin, a charismatic boy grappling with an alcoholic stepfather and his own hidden cruelty; and Ivo, a Croatian mechanic who returns home to fight in the war while the landlady’s young son hurls rocks at his workshop. Following her father's funeral in New York shortly after the Berlin Wall's fall on November 9, 1989, the narrator's grip on reality begins to slip. Isolated in her studio with her father's journals, she painstakingly creates paintings in a struggle to confront mortality, while attempting to decode her father's cryptic writings. The narrative addresses a shifting "you," initially aimed at the deceased father and evolving into a blend of intimate relationships. This exploration delves into memory and suppression amid political turmoil, as the author keenly observes the passage of time and its imprint on the silent witnesses of daily life.