Reading and Conversation with Beatrix Gerstberger

Description

"I can't teach you anything about the sea," Ann once said to Mina. "You feel it or you don't. In the end, the sea is like life, you have to figure everything out on your own. Others can only accompany you on the way." Mina spent the summers of her childhood every year on a small island in Maine, together with her parents and older brother. On Eagle Island, life felt free and light: Mina wandered through the pine forests with the fisher boy Sam, collected shells and bird feathers, while the adults let the days pass by on the beach and at garden parties. But a fateful summer day changed everything, the paths of Mina and Sam separated. Now, almost twenty years later, Mina's family has been broken by the sudden death of her brother. She has lost all support, even herself has become a stranger. And she knows: her search for herself must begin at the place where she was last happy. In Maine, she hopes, she will finally find out why the family left the island forever after that summer and never returned. Mina ends up in a lobster fishing village with the two fisherwomen Ann and Julie. The 72-year-old Ann has lived alone in a large house by the water since separating from her partner, only a rare blue lobster named Mr. Darcy keeps her company. Julie is in her mid-50s and had to fight hard for her place in the male-dominated village community. She pitches in where needed and doesn't mince words, but she cannot allow her feelings for the fisherman Nat due to old wounds. The rough everyday life of the lobster fisherwomen becomes the setting of an inspiring novel about love, the power of female community – and the question of whether the past determines our present. With Ann and Julie, Mina goes out to sea, from them she experiences warmth and a never-before-known feeling of belonging. Then she meets Sam again. The deep connection from childhood days is palpable from the first moment: Mina and Sam fall passionately in love. But Sam also struggles with his past, because his family was no longer the same after that fateful summer. Beatrix Gerstberger, born in 1964, is a freelance author for Brigitte, Stern, and Geo. She wrote the SPIEGEL bestseller "No Time to Say Goodbye" about the early death of her partner and the stories of other young widows 20 years ago when she lived for six months in a lobster fishing village in Maine. Many years later, she returned to this place, went out to sea with lobster fisherwomen, and talked with them about life, losses, grief, and moving on. This gave rise to the idea for this novel. Beatrix Gerstberger lives in Hamburg. Moderation: Luzia Stettler

Highlights

• Reading with bestselling author Beatrix Gerstberger
• Excerpt from the novel "The Lobster Women"
• Location: Bücher Lüthy, Aarau

General Information

Beatrix Gerstberger presents her latest literary works in a reading. The event takes place at the bookstore Bücher Lüthy in Aarau and offers the opportunity to learn more about the background of her novel.

Location

Bahnhofstrasse 20, 5000 Aarau, Switzerland

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