Close to the Edge
German, Jacoby & Stuart, 2023
“He was incredibly good at skating and that was enough for them to judge his character. They would have loved Lord Voldemort, too, if he’d had a decent kickflip in his repertoire.”
“Maybe what Tom said later on is true. That everything flows together. There’s no starting point from which everything changes from one day to the next or you’re suddenly a new person – things blend into each other.”
‘“Maybe the best life is right at the edge,” I said. “Not too far away, but not past it. Just right on it.”
Exploring her identity as a young woman, dealing with mental illness, coming to terms with her first heartbreak: the 17-year-old narrator of Eva Rottmann’s Close to the Edge has a lot to juggle and she tells her story in a refreshing, cheeky and humorous way.
Ari dreams of one day skateboarding down the Feuersteig. But the apprentice painter knows that to do so would be utterly insane: the winding street down from the tower block where Ari lives is far too steep, far too busy and far too dangerous. But that kind of risk, that kind of balancing act on the edge, is where Ari feels most at home. Her father giving her a skateboard was an ‘immediate life-saving measure’. Skating gave her an outlet for her anger caused by her mother’s absence. She hangs out at the skatepark every day with Lou, Yasin and Teddy, people whose quirks she can accept.
But on Easter Monday, a new boy arrives: Tom. He skates like a pro and leaves everyone awestruck. Ari is the only one who’s unimpressed. But she, of all people, is the one that Tom opens up to, dropping his coolness and offering her a glimpse into his scarred soul. And awakening feelings in Ari that she doesn’t want to admit to having.
Eva Rottmann’s narrator is used to looking over the edge: growing up on a fragile foundation, with a mentally ill mother who suddenly reappears on her doorstep wanting to make up for everything she missed; protected by a thick shell that tries to see feelings as annoying obstacles, she ‘slides’ through life, and is almost thrown off course by the events that come her way. Her retrospective account of the story of her first love, in which she not only tells of the events themselves but also reflects on and finds meaning in them, begins with a warning: ‘It doesn’t end well, I’ll tell you right now.’
In her conversations with her friends, she naturally discusses topics such as gender roles, feminist solidarity and – importantly – mental health, in addition to talking shop about skating. The members of the group of friends lovingly and amicably put each other in their place and question each other’s rash judgements. The author packs social issues into these dialogues and lets a clear attitude shine through, which is always represented by the characters and never seems artificial.
This is not ‘conformist’ literature, but literature about people going through a very intense time in their lives, in which all the important issues come together, concentrated like beams of light under a magnifying glass, many things are thoroughly reshuffled, and life is thrown into turmoil.
Text by Elisabeth Eggenberger
- Title
- Kurz vor dem Rand
- Publisher
- Jacoby & Stuart
- Translation rights
- Szilvia Weyer, szilvia.weyer@jacobystuart.de
- Publication date
- August 2023
- Pages
- 189
- ISBN
- 978-3-96428-188-3
Author
Eva Rottmann
Eva Rottmann, born in 1983 in Wertheim, lives with her children in Zurich, writes plays and fiction, develops her own performances and theater projects, brings literature into schools, and works as a teacher at the Zurich University of the Arts. She has received several awards for her work. “Kurz vor dem Rand” has been nominated for the German Youth Literature Award.
Photo © Sabina Bösch