A novel that is read with bated breath. Daniel Kehlmann. The Jansens want to celebrate together one last time, but their festivity ends tragically. Henning's chronicle of a model family is an absurd, pitch-black human comedy, a mosaic of hope, happiness, small and large terrors - a book about life. "The great realistic novel of these years." Matthias Altenburg. "How sensation arises solely through the power of language is something that should particularly delight every reader." Martin Walser. "What Jonathan Franzen could do, Peter Henning can do as well." Elke Heidenreich. Torrential rains are falling over the Taunus and Rhön. They are harbingers of a hurricane that strikes the Jansen family with full force of destruction: Because Johanna Jansen, the 80-year-old matriarch, wants to move into a retirement home, she wishes to gather her children around her one last time. But the twilight of life.