Elly by Maike Wetzel

Elly by Maike Wetzel

German fiction

Original title –  Elly

Translator – Lyn Marven

Source – Library

I saw this at the library on a recent visit and thought it was the perfect size for an evening read I still love the idea of a book being like a movie you can sit and read in a couple of hours. It was on a list of the best books in translation to read from the Guardian. It was also on the list for the Dagger Prize for books in Translation. Maike Wetzel studied in the UK and is also a screenwriter and novelist. She also had a short story collection translated into English. This novella caught my eye as it seems like it may have a twist around a child going missing and the outcome of this on the family.

The doctor hooks me up to the drip and puts me on the list for an operation. He wants to remove my appendix. My mother says again: Your colleague already took it out. The doctor prods my rigid belly. My mother stops fighting. She gives my name, our health insurance details. She called me Almut because of the north.

Because of the stiff breeze on the island of Sylt, where she has never been; because of the tall blond boy that she never kissed, because she doesn’t like tall blonds; because of the seagulls, whose cries make her melan-choly; and because of the seaweed and the salt which no longer cling to her legs: now it’s dark stretchy jeans with all their poisonous dyes instead. I’m also called Almut because it contains the German for courage, Mut, and my mother believed the name would give me

I just picked this as I had my appendix out as a kid

The book follows the effect on the family when the 11-year-old daughter, Elly, disappears. She was cycling home from a judo class. This follows when the daughter disappears. The family is gripped by grief and follows the police investigation. We see how Judith and Hamid Elly’s parents cope with this and how her older sister Ines struggles with the loss of her younger sister. So, after four long years, hope appears lost,, as time goes on, the hope of finding her alive drifts, and the hole that is left is still there, but the family, including her sister, move on with their lives. But then, after four years, Elly reappears, and the family is back whole again. However, as the family starts to heal, there are doubts about this girl who has returned as their daughter. Ines questions her about things they did as kids. Her grandmother has even bigger doubts. How has she come back? Is she Elly or ?

 

My sister disappears on a slightly overcast afternoon in June. I imagine how it happens. I see Elly wheeling her bike out of the garage. Her outline is clear and sharp, the background out of focus. She fixes her sports bag to the luggage rack. In it is her judo suit with the green belt. My sister is younger than me. I am thirteen at the time, she is just eleven. We live in a small town. Elly’s club meets in a sports hall in the nearest big town. She cycles there on her own across the fields. The wind sweeps through the wheat. From above, it looks like waves on water. Elly stands on the motorway bridge and looks down at the field. The wind ruffles her dark, almost black hair.

Ines talking About her sister disappering

This book is a wonderful mix of literary fiction and thriller in the way it is paced. The action slowly unwinds in the history of Elly disappearing, and its effect is told from all the family points of view, but the action turns around when the girl returns who is meant to be Elly. The book is an up-and-down ride. I was reminded of the early Peirene books that had the same quality as they did, and that is cinematic books that, like this book, take you as a reader on a journey. You can see that Maike is a screenwriter. This has the feel of a book that could easily be made into a film. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this being made into a film at some point I hope it does so I could watch it. It has a turning point of Elly returning and the doubts about her make this turn from a sad story of a lost daughter to something else. Do you have a favourite evening book, one you read in an evening like watching a great film? Do you like literary novels that have a feel of a thriller in the pace you can read them at?

Winstons score- A

A book strike me as perfect to be made into a film