"A childhood around 1960, in a town, not big, not small. A middle-class household where a lot of music is made. The father is a prison warden. The war was not so long ago, and the parents are trying to make up for what they call their lost years by devoting themselves to classical music and literature.
The boy senses cracks in this orderly world everywhere. He follows the political arguments that his older brothers have with his father and mother at the dinner table with rapt attention. But he remains a spectator. More and more often, he escapes into the world of fantasy.
This boy, whom the author sees as a distant brother of himself, tells us about his life and discovers his own view of the world in the process. When the seventy-three-year-old Edgar Selge occasionally intervenes himself, it becomes clear: the shadows of the war generation reach right into the present.
Edgar Selge's narrative tone is breathless, physical, risky. Full of wit and musicality. Whether Bach or Beethoven, Schubert or Dvořák, marching music or gospel: the music covers the story like a second narrative and accompanies the unwavering urge for freedom." (Publisher)