What does the death of the father mean for life? Who was this father? Who am I? The son sits in a cell and writes for his life. His life is the novel "Schattenfroh." Nothing can save him, not even his own storytelling. And yet, this is exactly what must be told: that the father is dead, the self is irretrievable, and the story of salvation is a tremendous lie. Those who read "Schattenfroh" read about God and the devil, about love and death, loneliness and pain, and the victims of the air raid on Düren on November 16, 1944; they read ink and white space, they read the text. "Schattenfroh" is a novel and the world and life. A thousand desperate pages that do not answer the question of whether life is repairable and whether storytelling can heal us. A thousand manic pages of the impossible farewell to the father: as hermetic as it is powerful, monumental, and profound.