The Crackling in the Universe

Matti – fifteen years old, the son of rich parents – is on a school camp. He's in grade ten, and the whole class is on the tiny island of Amrum. During these days of diigging up sandworms, hanging around on the beach, smoking weed and making out, Matti suffers a mental breakdown. It feels like he’s looking at the world from upside down.He starts to see an antelope among the sanddunes. His friends Anna, Can, and the others, band together to support him. A year later, he's still seeing the antelope and his parents send him to see a therapist. In grade twelve, he ends up in a psychiatric ward. His friends bust him out, and a few hours later they are back on the island of Amrum. And as they wait for the end of their time at school, Matti looks tentatively toward an uncertain future, but one thing’s for sure: he’s not alone.

The last years at school, first time with a girl, first time with a boy, and a diagnosis that makes everything more complicated. Stephan Lohse writes about mental health with striking mpathy, and depicts what it’s like to be a teenager with wit and poetry. And he shows how much easier it all is when you have friends as good as Matti’s.