The Grass on Our Side

• A deep but light-hearted novel about happiness beyond the nuclear family
• For readers of Despentes, Lisa Taddeo and Liv Strömquist
• English sample translation by Tim Mohr available

This is the story of three women who have no desire for the kind of life that is expected of them.

Kessie, Grit and Charly have always looked on their peers’ procreational urge with amused amazement. None of them has ever felt the desire to have children. Nor do they feel like retreating into a monogamous couple relationship and only ever wandering through the world as an “us” anymore. But now, in their mid-forties, some surprising events are making them question everything again.

Charly, an unsuccessful actress, is offered a big role – and finds out that she is pregnant, she’s just not sure by whom. Grit is kicked out of her shared apartment and has to move in with her boyfriend, who has been wanting this for a long time. But she wants a room of her own – or, better yet, a whole apartment. While her boyfriend looks for their shared future nest, she finds refuge in an allotment garden. Meanwhile, Kessie grows closer to her childhood sweetheart Nazim when she travels back home to settle her ailing mother into a nursing home. The only partner who has been by her side in recent years is her dog, Pan.

Each of these three women is faced with a decision – and society seems to know exactly how it should turn out.