The Girl Who Wasn’t There by Ferdinand von Schirach

A year ago I wrote about Ferdinand von Schirach’s The Collini Case.  So why revisit the same author?  Because he’s THAT good.  http://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2014/09/the-colllini-case.html

In The Girl Who Wasn’t There, von Schirach taunts us with another closed and shut case.  Sebastian von Eschburg had an unusual childhood, to say the least.  He’s risen above it.  A renowned photographic artist, his works play with reality and truth, bridging the boundaries of both.  He provokes, he guides his viewers into places of wonder.

Von Schirach carves his character in clear, distinct, but circular lines, making us wonder, plumbing the depths of an unknowable mind.  The language is sharp, concise, chiseled.  Take this short description of an episode in the protagonist’s beginning as a photographer:

“…the owner of a perfumery came into one of these small studios.  She wanted nude photographs of herself. She was in her mid-forties and she and her husband had divorced a few months before: the pictures were to be for the new man in her life.  She blushed when she said that.”

You’re immediately caught with the awkwardness, the abruptness, and a pathway leading to the heart of the book.  Somewhat romantic, but in the sense of gauze-covered glimpses, in a dream-like reality.

You wonder, why would a writer take the time to bridge the stepping-stones of his character’s development as a photographer?  The sure answer is, the reader needs to be lead carefully from transient soul to artist.  And yet, there is always that misty covering, the fog of who Sebastian von Eschburg really is as a man, as well as questions about his character.

Then comes the kicker.  A foot to the solar plexus.   The artist is accused of murder.  A seasoned lawyer, Konrad Biegler agrees to represent him.  Sebastian gives him no help at all in his own defense.  The evidence piles up.  Blood.  The murder scene.  It’s open and shut…or is it?  Dark shadows of deception darken every corner.  Still, the artist refuses to speak.

By this time, you read faster.  Ya gotta know!  This is a short book, just over 200 pages.  Once you open it, you won’t leave your chair, and when you finish, you’ll be breathless.

The Girl Who Wasn’t There, by Ferdinand von Schirach