High as the Waters Rise

May 25, 2020
The beautiful English-language debut from German poet Kampmann tells the story of a middle-aged oil rig worker’s emotional crisis after the death of his friend. Wenzel Waclaw is devastated when he discovers that his bunkmate, Matyas, has fallen from the oil rig platform where they work and drowned. After learning Matya’s family hasn’t been informed of his death, Waclaw travels to Bocsa, Hungary, to notify Matyas’s half-sister, Patricia, and realizes he knew little about Matyas’s past and motivations—and perhaps knows even less about his own. Waclaw then revisits his own severed connections: in Malta he breaks things off with his on-again, off-again lover; in the foothills of the Italian Alps he reconnects with his late father’s friend; and in Germany he looks for his common-law wife, Milena, whom he hasn’t contacted in years. He also reflects on the toll coal mining took on his father’s health, and Matyas’s shame and frustration following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill when they were working in the Gulf of Mexico. As Waclaw digs up memories of his drilling throughout the world—in Morocco, Mexico, and Brazil—he ruminates on generations of workers who must eke out a living by exploiting the earth and its resources. Kampmann captures the visceral uneasiness that arises from second guessing one’s past.

July 15, 2020
An oil worker reckons with the death of his best friend in this quiet but powerful novel. As German poet Kampmann's debut novel opens, a middle-aged oil worker named Waclaw grows worried that his bunkmate and longtime confidant, M�ty�s, is nowhere to be found. The two have worked the rigs together for years, cultivating an extremely close friendship, even spending their vacations together. When it becomes clear that M�ty�s has fallen off the rig and died, a stunned Waclaw takes time off from his demanding job, going in search of something, although he's not quite sure what that is. He travels first to Morocco, staying in a room the two had frequently shared, then to M�ty�s' town in Hungary to give his late friend's possessions to his sister. Then it's off to Italy and to Waclaw's own hometown in Germany, where he tries to finally come to terms with the arc of his life. This is a highly interior novel, with Kampmann laser-focused on Waclaw's grief, which is portrayed with compassion and honesty. Flashbacks clue the reader in to the details of Waclaw and M�ty�s' relationship, which, it's hinted, was possibly more than mere friendship. Kampmann's characters are memorable; her dialogue spare but realistic. Her prose, ably translated by Posten, isn't showy, but it's quite pretty and, at times, gorgeous. It can be a difficult novel to read with its insistent quietness and emotional heaviness, but readers who prefer their fiction reflective and not plot-heavy will likely find much to admire in its pages. It's a thoughtful, unsparing look at loss--as Kampmann writes, "Alone, a person can become so angry or sad, it rubs their eyes dull." A promising fiction debut with understated but beautiful writing.

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August 1, 2020

DEBUT After his best friend, M�ty�s, is swept off an oil platform near the coast of Africa, rig worker Waclaw leaves his job and embarks on a journey of grief through his past and through a Europe changed from his memory of youth and early adulthood. He ventures first to Italy, the residence of Alois, an elderly uncle who was important to him in his youth. Then, borrowing Alois's pickup truck, Waclaw begins an odyssey through Eastern Europe, visiting M�ty�s's sister before returning to his old hometown, where he hopes to reconnect with old girlfriend, Milena, only to find her comatose following a car accident. What results is the story of a man at the edge, a story of displacement and existential loneliness told with restraint and overall vagueness around the relationships among the various characters that both deepen the protagonist's sense of isolation and elevate the action to an almost mythic level. VERDICT Award-winning German author Kampmann is a poet, and this first foray into fiction is a poet's novel in the richness of its imagery and the exquisiteness of the language. It's as if the protagonist were a modern Odysseus returning to a home he no longer has--and that may no longer exist.--Lawrence Rungren, Andover, MA

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