Stella Stejskal – Im Mezzanin

A book about being woman, mother in a modern but still traditional society. About happiness and fulfillment, love and sex, responsibility and dependency, about life: Stella Stejskal‘s Im Mezzanin (in German).

Written by a friend back from my old times in Vienna, Stella Stejskal, like me an emigrant, I saw parts of this book during writing, and I was happy to see the final product and read it.

The first novel of Stella turns around Anna, the protagonist, a wife, mother, and woman, trying to find her balance between the house, family, kids, work, and her incredible power and thrive to live, live to the fullest.

Dein Leben in der Vorstadt, im Einfamilienhaus mit dem Garten, macht Dich nicht glücklich. Vordergründig hast Du alles, was eine Frau sich wünscht und doch fehlt Dir etwas Wesentliches: Verlangen und Leidenschaft.

(Your life in the suburb, in the one-family home with garden, it doesn’t make you happy. On the surface you do have everything what a woman could wish for, but you are missing something essential: desire and passion)

The author does not shy away from explicit language without ever dropping into the Vernacolo, the banalities. She manages to convey the incredible tension many of those being stretched out between the necessities of daily life and the need for a more personal life.

Last but not least, I loved this book for quoting one of my most favorite lines from a song:

Konstantin Weckers Was passiert in den Jahren, drangen leise durch den Raum. “Komm, wir gehen mit der Flut und verwandeln mit den Wellen unsere Angst in neuen Mut”, sang ich mit und dachte an den Sommer …

For those capable of German, very recommendable.