This book tells the story of the architect Böhring, who spends his summer vacation with his wife Ina and their daughter Julia on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. Unlike his two companions, the ageing Böhring doesn’t seem to be able to surrender to the whole southern summer atmosphere: relaxing on the beach, going for swims and on daytrips in the area. He is gripped by quiet feelings of alienation, small insecurities and a sense of precariousness, as if a fine fissure were opening up between his internal and external world. Without him understanding why, the world around him transforms into a hidden, faceless threat. From the start, the reader is sucked into this experience and an atmosphere of anticipation – without being able to explain it any better than Böhring can. Böhring doesn’t know what he’s looking for until he recognizes it in a moment of sudden terror. The shimmering heat, summer thunderstorms and wild nature beyond the vacation world set the stage for this panicked moment of confrontation with the extraordinary. In “Zikadengeschrei,” Wellershoff masterfully depicts the ambivalence of Eros and Thanatos, of intensified living and annihilation, of myth and self-preservation.
