Product description

This story begins one summer, just before what adults consider "real life" was supposed to truly begin for Natasha. In Glanitz, a small provincial town, life for her and her friends unfolds between the football pitch, the bus shelter, and the fairground. Always present is the hand, as Natasha calls it. The hand that lurks on her thigh like a fish, intruding uninvited as the sky changes from midnight blue to early morning blue and everyone is drunk.

Five years later, Natascha has left the confines of her hometown and lives with her chosen family in an occupied button factory. Here, Natascha becomes Nao; here there is no past, no hierarchy, no 'he' and 'she,' only 'we.' But the memories of her youth haunt her, and with distance, she realizes how often her boundaries were violated. Ann Esswein tells a story of powerlessness, shame, and the unease for which there were no words in her youth—directly, unflinchingly, and with great urgency.

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