"Human disasters as still lifes," is how Bernhard Strobel's stories have been described by critics. The people in his new tales are horrifically annoyed with each other, and this irritability is always on the verge of a frightening outburst. The lethargic, silent (or perhaps just taciturn?) protagonists of these texts live almost exclusively in their small houses, not in the city, not in the countryside, but in the region in between; there is a small or larger garden, the obligatory garage, neighbors, and children. And the result is the sheer opposite of an idyll: accusations, aggression, distrust, much left unsaid, and secrets that Strobel, the "master of omission," would leave with his characters, as he approaches them as little as they maintain distance from one another. The grotesque surrounds them.