My father, the liar: Daniela Dröscher’s novel “Lies about my mother”

KCan you forgive your father if he thinks your mother is too fat and keeps eyeing her disapprovingly? Are you almost blackmailed into an “FdH” diet, i.e. “Eat half?” Denied her money as if he alone was entitled to the family income? Maybe a child can forgive their father for something like that later, but this book doesn’t tell you if it’s possible. Daniela Dröscher’s novel “Lügen über meine Mutter” is all about this mother, who was considered too fat throughout her marriage and whose weight – absurd as it sounds – should be the reason for every failure of her husband.

Like her protagonist Ela, Dröscher was born in Rhineland-Palatinate in 1977. It remains to be seen whether there is an autobiographical basis for the book, but the introductory chapters suggest so. Because in four years of childhood, described from Ela’s point of view, there are always interruptions from an omniscient first-person narrator who tries to explain how things could have come to this between the parents. And from passages of conversation with the mother, one concludes with relief that at some point they separated.

Dark family atmosphere, enhanced by the village

Ela’s childhood is marked by arguments between father and mother. She wants to do a diploma in French in order to have better chances on the job market – which he only allows if she looses weight and pays for the course herself. Later she doesn’t come to study anyway because she is pregnant with her second child and has to take care of her mother who has Alzheimer’s disease. Meanwhile, the father is on a skiing holiday alone.

The dark family atmosphere is reinforced by the village they live in. Because of the husband, the couple moved back from Munich to Ela’s home country after Ela’s birth, where the mother always remained a stranger. While he speaks the dialect and has an intact social environment, she usually remains lonely. With a jealous mother-in-law in the house and the father’s desire to splurge in the village – ideally with a thin woman too – the mother’s downfall begins.

Because celery, color and “FdH” diets and going to the “Weightwatchers” don’t help, and the balloon that the mother has inserted in the stomach despite the risks to stop hunger can’t do anything either. Because of her figure, she is not allowed to go on a beach holiday, and the villagers whisper when they see the fat strange woman.

With her novel, Dröscher shows how unfair life was for women thirty years ago. It’s infuriating to read about this patriarch, whose expression is said to set the mood in the family. Who has never washed a plate, never ironed a shirt and been out drinking with other villagers the day his wife gave birth.

This novel does not have a happy ending. Rather, an accumulation of the misery of a woman who is getting fatter and lives without any recognition for her work. Her life is a torment, like that of many other women who selflessly sacrificed themselves, and it only ends when the children are out of the house. Only then can Ela recognize her father’s statements about her mother for what they were: lies. Too late for a family you wish had broken up sooner.

Daniela Dröscher: “Lies about my mother”. Roman.Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2022. 448 p., hardcover, €24.