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Last House Before The Mountain
Monika Helfer
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Description for Last House Before The Mountain
paperback.
‘Beautiful and heartbreaking ... I absolutely loved it’ MONICA ALI
‘A poignant, captivating, beautifully woven family saga. As honest as Elena Ferrante, with the folkloric intensity of Téa Obreht’ CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE
‘The final moving paragraph strikes the reader like a knife to the heart’ OBSERVER
Maria and Josef live with their children in a valley in westernmost Austria. When the First World War breaks out and Josef is drafted into the army, Maria is left to provide for her family alone. Every day is a struggle against starvation, the harsh alpine climate and the hostile nearby ... Read morevillagers who see Maria as little more than a beautiful temptress out for the men left behind. But when a red-haired stranger arrives in the village, Maria feels happiness seep back into her life and she faces a choice whose consequences will affect the lives of her family for generations to come.
Based on the internationally bestselling and award-winning Austrian novelist Monika Helfer's own family history, Last House Before the Mountain is a propulsive, haunting, multi-layered saga about love, family, and the hidden wages of war.
Maria and Josef live with their children in a valley in westernmost Austria. When the First World War breaks out and Josef is drafted into the army, Maria is left to provide for her family alone. Every day is a struggle against starvation, the harsh alpine climate and the hostile nearby villagers who see Maria as little more than a beautiful temptress out to seduce the men left behind.
But when a red-haired stranger arrives in the village, Maria feels happiness seep back into her life and she faces a choice, with consequences that will affect the lives of her family for generations to come.
Based on the award-winning Austrian novelist’s own family history, this is a propulsive, haunting story about love, family and the hidden wages of war.
‘A masterclass in literary compression. Helfer brings a whole world of wonder, loss and deep, deep longing to indelible life’ LAIRD HUNT
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Product Details
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 2 to 4 working days
About Monika Helfer
Monika Helfer is the bestselling author of novels, short stories, and children’s books, including, most recently, Vati [Daddy], Die Bagage [Last House Before the Mountain], and Die Bar im Freien [The Outdoor Bar]. This is her first novel to be translated into English. She lives in Hohenems, Austria. Gillian Davidson is a literary translator based in London. ... Read moreShe greatly admires Monika Helfer’s work and Last House Before the Mountain is her first published work of translation. Show Less
Reviews for Last House Before The Mountain
A novel about what’s hidden and what happens when it is revealed ... What distinguishes Last House Before the Mountain from a hundred other family stories is its charm: narrated by Maria’s granddaughter, it confides in the reader intimately. And when we learn that the story is based on Helfer’s own family, the final moving paragraph strikes the reader like ... Read morea knife to the heart
John Self
Observer
[Last House] is beautiful and heartbreaking, and readers will fall in love with Maria. It’s also a profound meditation on the stories we tell about ourselves, the stories others tell about us, how those stories are handed down the generations, and the effect of inherited narratives and memories on our lives. I absolutely loved it
Monica Ali, Sunday Times Bestselling author of Love Marriage
A poignant, captivating, beautifully woven family saga. As honest as Elena Ferrante, with the folkloric intensity of Téa Obreht, Last House Before the Mountain explores the ways we reconstruct our family histories in an attempt to understand who we are
Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of The Exiles, A Piece of the World, and Orphan Train
Last House Before the Mountain by Monika Helfer is a masterclass in literary compression. In just 125 pages, Helfer brings a whole world of wonder, loss and deep, deep longing to indelible life
Laird Hunt, author of Zorrie
Monika Helfer powerfully transfigures the lives of a family who exist physically and emotionally at the edge of their society, as the flames of war reshape their shadowed world forever
David Park, author of Spies in Canaan
The whole, biographically inspired family drama tells of the greatest feelings we have: Love, anger, envy and grief
Meike Schnitzler, Brigitte
Every sentence resonates in hazy, indescribable beauty
Alexander Solloch, NDR Kultur
In Monika Helfer's novel, not only every word is right, but every syllable
schreiblust-leselust.de
A powerful, autofictional family epic
TOPMagazin
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