Angelika Klüssendorf's 'Trost': A Dysfunctional Patchwork Family in Brandenburg

Angelika Klüssendorf's novel 'Trost' is set in the Brandenburg province and follows a dysfunctional patchwork family attempting to love each other as the world collapses in 2022. The story centers on Rita, an author living in a small house with her beloved animals, who is visited regularly by Joachim, her partner of eleven years. Despite wanting to separate for a long time and suspecting she has an attachment disorder, Rita cannot bring herself to leave. Joachim's seventeen-year-old daughter Jane looks up to Rita. The novel explores themes of love in its various forms—maternal, paternal, and spiritual—and suggests that some people are illiterate in love. The narrative does not offer spiritual consolation, as the title might suggest. The work is reviewed by Marlen Hobrack in the German newspaper 'der Freitag'.