Liebestölpel

About the clumsy attempt to cope with the stubborn thing called love. Peter Wawerzinek's stunning novel about life's loves and lies, family longing and escape. And about holding on and disappearing. Told in a musical and vivid language, as only Peter Wawerzinek can. "Love, oh boy, it's better if you stay away from it," his grandfather warned him when he was just fourteen. People like them could only suffer shipwreck. If they were birds, his grandfather continued, they would belong to the species of the northern fulmars. Northern fulmars are magnificent gliders in the air. But during their landing approach, their true problem reveals itself: suddenly they become awkward, almost clumsy. And this continues during mating, nest building, and raising their young. Northern fulmars, according to the grandfather, tend to have complicated relationship behaviors. When the grandfather explained this, the narrator in Peter Wawerzinek's novel "Liebestölpel" could not yet know that he was actually on the verge of his first romantic crash landing: his childhood friend Lucretia, with whom he had spent almost every minute since he was three, would soon prefer to meet with the butcher's apprentice instead of him. Yes, even worse, without any warning, she would simply disappear from one day to the next.