Ein Hummerleben

Atmospherically rich and with incredible storytelling, WDR presents

A grandly narrated novel that describes the decline of a once fashionable hotel in the Norwegian mountains against a beautiful backdrop, and tells a story of lies and secrets, false expectations, and grandparental love. A hotel high up in the Norwegian fjell in the 1980s. Sedd grows up with his grandparents. He knows little about his father, and his mother is missing. Lovingly but firmly, his grandparents – the grandfather is also a taxidermist, and the grandmother hails from Vienna – prepare him for his role as the future heir to the hotel. He helps out as a runner, kitchen boy, and tour guide, internalizing the motto "Every single guest counts" from a young age. His refuge is the hotel’s large kitchen, where the former sailor Jim runs things and serves as a father, mother, and friend to Sedd when his grandparents are too busy for him. However, the first cracks in the supposed idyll appear when the bank director Berge dies during a meal.