Was wirst du tun, wenn du gehst

"Someone dies or a love comes to an end and nothing is resolved, you are simply left with it," said Lucia Berlin about Anton Chekhov and his art of storytelling with an open ending. Just as little as her role model, Lucia Berlin judges her characters; she zooms in on life as closely as he does: a first love, a passionate affair, failing marriages, brief flings. Time and again, family appears, especially the dying sister, but also the struggle with alcohol, loneliness, and guilt, particularly towards her sons. Lucia Berlin's unsentimental yet deeply emotional perspective on the ups and downs of life, along with her dark, pointed humor, make this storyteller so unique and timelessly modern.