Wenzel Groszak, an oil rig worker on a platform in the middle of the sea, loses his only friend on a stormy night. After his friend's death, Wenzel travels to Hungary to bring his belongings to the family. And now? Should he return to a platform? Off the coast of West Africa, he will throw away his work clothes and set off northward through Malta and Italy to a defunct Ruhr area, his former home. The closer he gets to his great love Milena, the more uncertain he seems about whether he can find his way back. Anja Kampmann's surprising novel tells, in dense, poetic language, of the return from abroad and the attempt to find a way back to one's own life from a soulless working world.