Alex is trying to write an essay, without any success. The subject: what my mother and I don’t speak about. A visit to the glamorously run-down provincial villa of his overwrought mother is intended to help, but only goes to demonstrate that they don’t talk to each other at all. Not about Alex’s queerness, not about the antidepressants they both clearly take, not about the family trauma. When his mother (accidentally) shoots at Alex at a shooting match, it is clear it isn’t just the essay that is a failure. A grandiose, laconic novel about what divides families and keeps them together – the unspoken.

The VorLaut Readings offer young authors a stage on which to read their texts in front of established authors, in a way similar to supporting acts in music.