16, NG12, F10, E16

Lisa Jewell, The Making of Us

Die Synopsis des Buches war schon so vielversprechend, dass ich nicht widerstehen konnte und mir das Buch auf den Paperwhite lud, als ich fürs erste genug von Krimis und Kurzgeschichten hatte. Und dann enttäuschte es nicht, sondern erwies sich als so spannend und nahezu unwiderstehlich - als ob es mich förmlich einsaugte - dass ich es kaum aus der Hand legen mochte und in zwei Tagen durchhatte. Schon die Idee ist einfach so ansprechend, drei völlig unterschiedliche Kinder eines Samenspenders, die zueinander und damit auch zu sich selbst finden und es auch schaffen, ihren biologischen Vater noch kennenzulernen bevor es zu spät ist. Jede einzelne der Geschichten wäre für sich schon ein Buch wert.

He had not chewed anything for days. He had not held a tea cup or picked up a paper for days. Death was playing a childisch game, tip-toeing around mischievously: 'Here I am! Oh, no, only joking, I'm over here... no, over here!' Every time she asked a nurse, 'How long? How long do you think?' she would be met with the same response. It could be anytime. Death did not just hit you with a stick and then walk away and leave you to die. Death fiddled about with you first. Death forced you head first into the toilet bowl of your demise and then yanked you back by the collar. Death was not as simple as Maggie had imagined.
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There she lay, her fists curled inwards towards her ears, a living, breathing amalgamation of a hundred thousand different people, all of whom had at some point in their lives had a night of passion with somebody else and made another one, outwards and onwards in ever-increasing circles, an unstoppable force of humanity extrapolating itself across millennia. Until here, in a small cottage in a Bury St. Edmunds backwater, it was all distilled down into one perfect, creamy pearly - Matilda.
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The more ill he becomes, the less he finds himself alone. Possibly because he sleeps for much longer but also because people do not like to leave the dying in case there is no one there to see them go. Like waiting for a bus, the more time you invest in awaiting the outcome the harder it is to walk away.
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(Lisa Jewell, The Making of Us, 2011