Es gibt keine Wale im Wilmersee

There are things that belong to the water. When winter is cold enough, Lake Wilmer freezes over, and one can walk across the ice to the small forest island. The winter when the narrator was eight was cold. But not cold enough. That winter, she lost Alice and her name to the lake. Since then, no one in her family speaks anymore. And with language, people disappear as well – the mother, the father, the sister. The narrator retreats completely into her memories, to a time when her mother told her stories about the whales in Lake Wilmer and the dark, empty house was still full of life. This is the only way she feels safe from losing even more. Until one autumn day, Jora stands at the door, a young red-haired woman who is not satisfied with silence. But it is dangerous to let Jora and her stories into the house, for she too could simply disappear again. The read is worthwhile. The author succeeds in capturing such emotions in a literary way through the poetic quality of her language. In this way, she approaches the otherwise unspeakable.