A Slit of Air

Shortly after he was born, his mother suffers her first psychosis. She takes the infant and withdraws from the outside world more and more, breaks off all contact with friends and family, rarely leaves the one-bedroom flat. Meanwhile, his father fights for sole custody. When the son is finally welcomed into his new family, all contact with his mother stops. That is why, almost twenty years later, he depends on the testimony of others – court files, tape recordings, family stories and memories – to learn what happened during that time. He imagines what that time could have been like and a surreal, nightmarish world catches up with him.

With great empathy, Mischa Mangel tells the story of a young man who is circling both his own story as well as that of his family. He assembles different voices: the bureaucratic language of psychological evaluations and studies, fairy tales, dreams, psychotic rants, narrative and poetic sequences – an artistic collage, a polyphonic literary debut.

»In a collage of different narrative voices, court and youth welfare office records, passages of a dystopian fairy tale and surreal sequences, Mischa Mangel tells of the search for clues by the boy who has now grown up. ... Through the different voices and approaches, all of the novel’s protagonists can actually be understood.« Eva-Lena Lörzer, taz. die tageszeitung

»It is precisely in its fragmentary structure that this artful novel comes as close as possible to the illness.« Kathrin Maurer, Der Tagesspiegel

»The un-narratable is narrowed down with precision and impressive stylistic finesse in this novel and gains particularly clear contours because of it.« Maria-Christina Piwowarski, blauschwarzberlin

»A Slit of Air ... develops a pull if you let it.« Katharina Manzke, BÜCHERmagazin

»... poetic, associative, confusing, beguiling.« Jacek Slaski, Aida Baghernejad, Erik Heier, tip