Cherrypicker | Literature   Escape to mum

In his new book, Joachim Meyerhoff flees from Berlin and his midlife crisis to his mum in the country. In addition to foot massages, he also gets plenty of whiskey there.

When Joachim Meyerhoff published his first novel Amerika in 2011, in his mid-40s, he was already a renowned and multi-award-winning actor as a member of the Vienna Burgtheater ensemble. It was the first part of an autobiographical cycle called Alle Toten fliegen hoch (All the Dead Fly High), which deals with transience, loss and death, the accidental death of one of his two brothers, the illness and death of his father, his deceased beloved grandparents and past love.

Heavy topics presented lightly

It was clear from the outset that this was not a well-known actor trying his hand at writing, but a talented author. Meyerhoff is very successful with his books about his family cosmos. This is not least due to the fact that he is able to write about difficult subjects with ease and punchlines. Comedy and tragedy lie close together. As a reader, you can feel the author's deep affection for his characters, despite or rather thanks to all their quirks. It is also likeable that Meyerhoff does not take himself and his quirks too seriously.

In the frame story of his sixth book, Man kann auch in die Höhe fallen (You Can Also Fall Upwards), Meyerhoff has arrived in the present after the novels about his past. The first-person narrator flees to his lively 86-year-old mother in the countryside of Schleswig-Holstein, near the Danish border. Even though he tries to convince himself that his mother needs help, the only thing in need of care there is the huge garden - and of course himself. In his mid-50s, he becomes a child again, lovingly cared for by his mother, who by no means puts her own needs on the back burner. She has far too much to do to just look after her son: Keeping the house and garden in shape, singing in the choir, going for a swim in the Baltic Sea, shooting at pesky cormorants with an air gun and drinking whiskey on a regular basis.

Acid bath Berlin

Meyerhoff arrives at his mother's in a miserable state. He sleeps miserably, cannot tolerate his medication, which he has to take because of a previous stroke, and feels like “melted cheese” flowing into every crack in the sofa. He also has writer's block and his move from Vienna to Berlin hasn't been kind to him: “I hadn't written anything for weeks, even though the stories were floating around in my head. Berlin, however, turned out to be an acid bath that ate away at my inspiration on a daily basis ... Not a day went by in this city without me being shouted at, almost run over or at least reprimanded.”

The first chapters are dedicated to his mother - he portrays her as a hands-on woman who loves kebabs and currywurst and drives a car “like a scorched pig”. She is also very direct and greets her son with the words: “How you look! Dressed in black and so pale as cheese. That's exactly how I imagine death when it comes for me. All that's missing is the scythe.”

Ariel is stuck in the lift

Thanks to a mother's love, gardening and a quiet country life, Meyerhoff gradually picks up courage and starts writing again. His mother also helps him find a topic. “Why don't you write about me,” she says. As she likes his stories, she is the first to hear them. However, motherly love does not blind her; she still sees room for improvement in her son's literary skills: “You could try writing longer sentences. Like Thomas Mann. Or read Doderer.”

Over the course of the book, the mother chapters alternate with bizarre episodes from Meyerhoff's life, especially from his theatre life. There are blackouts on stage or a production in which he has to play a sex-addicted young priest who masturbates himself to death in a confessional out of shame. Another time, Meyerhoff embodies the air spirit Ariel in Shakespeare's The Tempest. He has to slide down a six-metre-long pole again and again. To get back up again each time, he uses a lift behind the stage. Suddenly it gets stuck, and Prospero calls the air spirit at his service in increasing desperation. Meyerhoff alias Ariel, who is stuck in the lift, desperately presses the emergency call button. However, the terse reply is that someone will be round in half an hour.

Anecdotal style

Meyerhoff's style is anecdotal. If this genre existed, he could be described as a master of the anecdotal novel. His anecdotes work on their own, but they also fit together perfectly. Meyerhoff addresses the fact that the anecdote plays at most a secondary, if not a subordinate role within the literary genres in one chapter, just to rehabilitate it. And what he writes about the anecdote undoubtedly applies to all his books: “Tired and exhausted from climbing literary eight-thousanders, you can refresh yourself here and linger for a while.” Meyerhoff flirts with the role and clichés of the hypersensitive, self-centred artist, as always witty and full of self-irony. Writing temporarily liberates us from our own existence. As this also applies to reading, his books are extremely accessible: We non-artist people can also recognise ourselves in them.

In his mum tribute book, his mother comes across as a super mum. Even when she has to spontaneously stand in for her son at a reading in a bookshop, who leaves the room in a hurry due to an anxiety attack, she reacts coolly and is frenetically celebrated by the audience afterwards for her reading. She even makes something up at the end. This is exactly how Meyerhoff works, he starts from events and memories and embellishes them. What is fiction, what is truth? I don't know, either way his novel is once again a pleasure to read! It ends with the mother falling in love again. It is time for the son to return to Berlin.
 

01/2025