Bubusch

In the Berlin of technological progress, where Skype, email, and text messages shape everyday life, two unlikely figures meet: the charismatic writer Andy, who has a fatal penchant for alcohol, and the mysterious narrator of this story, whom he calls Bubusch, "because the name rolled off his tongue easily." A love affair quickly develops between them, and together they move to San Francisco, populated by ex-hippies, beatniks, and aging gangsters. However, instead of building a future there, Andy clings to the ghosts of the past, especially his mother, who miraculously survived in Nazi-occupied Paris. She appears to him hauntingly, smoking on the roof, forgetting her lipstick in the bathroom, and lurking at the foot of his bed. His increasing disarray also affects Bubusch; she becomes a hostage to Andy's trauma and madness. One day, when she catches sight of the lonely island of Alcatraz, the legendary prison, she has only one wish: to escape. In her new novel filled with curious moments, Julia Kissina sensitively narrates the desperate attempt to bring together two fundamentally different worlds that arise from the trauma of memory and the desire for change. A captivating journey through the winding paths from 1940s Paris to contemporary Berlin and San Francisco.