The Left End of the Bench

Ruben Winter used to be an architect. Now he sits at the left end of the same bench in the Palmengarten, Frankfurt's botanical garden, every day. He has done so for more than twenty years. He knows the opening hours, the plants and everyone who comes by regularly. He doesn't return his daughters' calls.

Then Malin rings. Katharina is dead. Ruben's wife. They have lived apart since 2004.

Signe, the elder, holds the family together with lists and deadlines. Malin, the younger, is fighting for her children's workshop. She has no patience for a father who won't answer questions.

Among her mother's things, Signe finds a diary. The first Thursday of every month: 7pm. No name. Just a circle. Who was Katharina meeting all those years?

A novel in four voices, one of them belonging to the house in which the sisters grew up. A story about a family that has been talking past one another for years. With biting humour and no promise that everything will be all right in the end.