BookTIPS

The birthday party

A birthday party, an unwanted guest and an inevitable catastrophe
For his 50th birthday, Kim Mey's three children want to surprise their father with a special guest at the family birthday party: without his knowledge, they have invited Tevi Gardiner, the woman with whom Kim fled Cambodia as a child. And whom he hasn't seen for 25 years. But instead of being happy as expected, Kim reacts strangely dismissively. Ines, the mother of the three, also treats Tevi coldly. What Kim and Ines have kept quiet about for decades is now inevitably being heard: the true circumstances surrounding that dramatic escape from Cambodia and the terrible end of a great love. And so a seemingly harmless surprise turns a birthday party into a family drama...

"The Birthday Party", the painfully empathetic family drama by the renowned Spiegel bestseller author and Glauser Prize winner Judith W. Taschler, revolves around family relationships and lies, great love and escape and homecoming. Told in multiple voices and with virtuosity, Innsbruck native Judith W. Taschler creates "characters that get under the reader's skin and stay in the memory for a long time" (Petra) in her unmistakably clear language.

Judith W. Taschler sheds light on the major turning points in life, telling her story in a sophisticated and psychologically dense way, full of compassion for her characters, without ever becoming kitschy.
»I am always happy when a new book by the author is published because I really appreciate her way of writing.« (Christine Westermann, WDR2)