Monde vor der Landung

Worms, early twenties of the last century. Peter Bender, formerly a flying lieutenant in the German Army, makes a name for himself as the founder of a new religious community and with the proclamation of the so-called Hollow Earth theory: According to this theory, humanity does not live on, but inside a sphere, and nothing exists outside of it. Bender's congregation remains small, yet he is sentenced to several months in prison for spreading seditious and blasphemous pamphlets. When it becomes known after the Nazis come to power that his wife is Jewish, even his closest followers turn away from him. The Benders fall into poverty, and the repression against his wife soon becomes unbearable until the family is arrested and deported in 1942. Only the son survives the concentration camp. In his long-awaited new novel, Clemens J. Setz reconstructs a real, as moving as it is disturbing life and family story. More than that, "Moons Before Landing" is an exploration of the destructive delusional world of a manic egocentric and an illustration of a contrarian mindset avant la lettre: shockingly relevant, with unparalleled linguistic and intellectual originality.