»The sun disintegrated.«

Marion Poschmann’s long-awaited new novel is about Germany from the perspective of the grandchildren of war. A novel about the power of time, about memory and timeless unity. A novel about fragile identities, about beautiful appearances and the search for an inner light – gleaming, clear as glass, and with a subtle tension.

After the reunification of Germany, Altfried Janich finds a job in a decrepit baroque building that newly houses a psychiatric institute. He believes his duty is to adopt the position of the sun for his patients, to be a guide and source of comfort. When his friend Odilo is killed in a mysterious car accident, he descends into his own dark side. During the day he grows closer to his patients, at night he wanders like a ghost through the halls, besieged by memories, and his family’s history of losses closes in on him. All of Altfried’s life up until this point seems to have been headed toward the situation in the castle: all stories end here, and he soon adjusts to the certainty that he will never again escape.

»Shadow only lets itself deflect. Shadow is there, where my gaze doesn’t fall. And yet I know of it, because light comes from darkness.«

The Pine Islands