Eternal Summer - by Franziska Gänsler (Paperback)

About the Book

"Set in a German spa town wracked by climate change, this intense, enthralling debut explores trust, abuse, and solidarity through the unexpected bond between two women. When Iris took over the family hotel from her grandfather, Bad Heim was still a popular spa town. But now fierce forest fires rage in the area, spewing smoke into the air. The summers are dry and hot and never seem to end. Guests have become a rare sight. But suddenly, a young mother shows up with her small daughter and asks for a room. Something doesn't seem right about her. Does she need help? Or even pose a threat? Franziska Gèansler's debut conjures up the heat of the fires, the ashes falling on skin, and the all-pervading smell of smoke. Yet you will want to stay with these women in this inhospitable place as they draw closer together and prepare to fight for their freedom"--

Book Synopsis

Set in a German spa town wracked by climate change, this intense, enthralling debut explores trust, abuse, and solidarity through the unexpected bond between two women.

When Iris took over the family hotel from her grandfather, Bad Heim was still a popular spa town. But now fierce wildfires rage in the area, spewing smoke into the air. The summers are dry and hot and never seem to end. Guests have become a rare sight. But suddenly, a young mother shows up with her small daughter and asks for a room. Something doesn't seem right about her. Does she need help? Or even pose a threat?

Franziska Gänsler's debut conjures up the heat of the fires, the ashes falling on skin, and the all-pervading smell of smoke. Yet you will want to stay with these women in this inhospitable place as they draw closer together and prepare to fight for their freedom.

Review Quotes

"Stunning...[a] razor-sharp novel with moments of soft padding...Gänsler builds tension, both personal and existential, with astonishing control, and care." --New York Times

"A tense, atmospheric thriller whose primary threat derives from the literal atmosphere...Eternal Summer concludes with several great set pieces...a credit to Gänsler's vision and Taylor's lucid, intimate translation. There is even one unexpected final twist that tugs at the heartstrings and shows how thought-out this multifaceted debut truly is." --Los Angeles Review of Books

"Exceptional...Startling portrayals of womanhood and contemporary gender imbalances make Eternal Summer an emotional, powerful novel." --Foreword Reviews (starred review)

"Informed by images of people trapped indoors in smoke-filled cities from the U.S. to Thailand...[Eternal Summer is] a work of psychological suspense, but Gänsler also wanted German readers who escape en masse each year to the 'good air' of their southern mountains to imagine a world that no longer offered such respite." --Publishers Weekly

"I loved this book. Exploring the unsettling tension between individual lives and the collective upheaval of the climate crisis, it questions what we owe one another. Its haunting is subtle, slow and flickering from page to page until it catches. The two women stayed with me for days afterward." --Sarah S. Grossman, author of A Fire So Wild

"Gänsler's language is calm and unerring. Parallel to the fatal consequences of the climate crisis, she also narrates the story of women." --Der Spiegel

"A feminist climate-fiction novel that gets under the skin in many different ways." --Berliner Zeitung

About the Author

Franziska Gänsler was born in Augsburg in 1987. She studied art and English in Berlin, Vienna, and Augsburg. In 2020 she was shortlisted for the Blogbuster Prize and was a finalist at Berlin's 28th Open Mike competition. Gänsler lives in Augsburg and Berlin. Eternal Summer is her debut novel.

Imogen Taylor was born in London in 1978 and has lived in Berlin since 2001. She is the translator of Sascha Arango, Dirk Kurbjuweit, and Melanie Raabe, among others. Her translation of Sasha Marianna Salzmann's Beside Myself (Other Press, 2020) was short-listed for the 2021 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize and the 2020 Schlegel-Tieck Prize.