Tommie Goerz is known to most readers as the author of regional thrillers. With “Im Tal” he has now written an oppressive novel about the tragic fate of a man who was destined to fail – with a force that cannot be escaped.
No, Tommie Goerz really didn’t make it easy for himself with his novel “Im Tal” (Ars Vivendi). He took four years to break out of the world of crime novels, for which the author from Erlangen is known and valued. For four years he searched for the right language for the lost soul that lives in a remote farm in Franconian Switzerland; a lonely man who never got a chance to find a foothold in life. He gave this disastrous life story four years to mature because he knew that the characters he draws in the 100 short chapters are more than a tearful love story – because so much suffering makes love difficult. Because so much misery develops a force that the reader cannot escape. An unstoppable fate that you want to avert page after page and know that the plan will fail. A suction arises. To the last page – although it is already clear at the very beginning of the novel that the man from the Einödhof has died.