One day, Ponto simply disappeared. Who was this man, this child of nature who had at some point studied law, then dropped out and struggled through life doing odd jobs? His strange relationship with the attractive Carla, so close but at the same time evidently unstable, equally confuses his drinking pals. One of them, a printer, is luckily off work sick and has time to try and trace the missing person by means of deciphering scribbled messages on beer mats and diaries - not quite without ulterior motives, for he himself is caught in a dreary marriage, a life between middle-class comforts and a striving for higher things.
Piwitt sets off a firework display of ideas, plays on words and a detailed observation of human behaviour and social constraints. He invites the reader to participate in the investigations, the discussions in the pub, the observations on our time. It is as though the story-teller were holding a conversation - with his characters as well as with his readers - »open, playful, volatile and agile, satirical and melancholy but, most importantly, pleasantly relaxed« (Wolfram Schütte in the newspaper »Frankfurter Rundschau«).
A novel full of wit and gravity, telling the story of ordinary people who yearn to lead their own lives. Thirty years after his first publication, Piwitt`s work is still as fresh and topical as ever.
Piwitt shows himself to be a master in the creation of atmospheric scenes and characters.
The Author
Hermann Peter Piwitt, born in 1935, grew up in Frankfurt am Main, studied sociology, philosophy and literary studies and was an editor at Rowohlt Publishers. When his first work »Herdenreiche Landschaften« was published in 1965, he immediately became a literary tip - a large number of novels and stories followed; he also made a name for himself as a brilliant essayist. He has received several awards. Today, Piwitt lives in Hamburg.
