My Mother's Lovers

Lovers come and go when their time is up. Her mother’s first husband was killed in the war, and the narrator has no memory of her father. A lonely castle becomes a refuge not only for the mother, who takes on weaving work to support her children, but also for people in the areas who have lost their roots. This unusually calm woman does not allow life’s adversities to make her bitter, but has the capacity to take her happiness where she finds it.

As in her last story, Nach dem Gewitter (After the Storm), here Ulrike Edschmid is concerned with turning points in life. She looks back from a great temporal distance at the time after World War II. Her mother being able to send her lovers away was as unusual at this time as the lightness with which she rose above material straits. For all her painful experiences she continued to embrace life.