When the GDR collapses, the narrator’s family gathers in front of the stove one evening to burn all the evidence of their members’ Stasi activities. The only son grows up in a world that is in dissolution and in which the parents quickly lose their bearings. Because she cannot get over the shock of the fall of the Wall, which means the loss of her self-image, her jobs, her relationships, she remains silent in the past. Only when the grandfather, the socialist hero figure of the family, gradually becomes demented does a new beginning seem conceivable. in “The Early Years” Felix Stephan tells of a family that has to build a new life without being able to refer to the old one, and takes a look at the inner devastation of the adapted and the challenges of freedom.
Felix Stephan: The early years. Novel. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2023. 255 pages, 22 euros.