New Year

New Year

2022 PEN Translation Award FINALIST In this masterful novel, author Juli Zeh skillfully shifts away from the conventional tale of a middle-aged, middle-class father out for a New Year’s Day bike ride to an unexpectedly dark, psychological family drama. Lanzarote on New Year’s Day: Henning is cycling up the steep path to Femés. As he struggles against the wind and the gradient he takes stock of his life. He has a job, a wife, two children―yet hardly recognizes himself anymore. Panic attacks have been pouncing on him like demons. When he finally reaches the pass in utter exhaustion, a mysterious coincidence unveils a repressed yet vivid memory, plunging him back into childhood and the traumatic event that almost cost him and his sister their lives. In this masterful novel, bestselling author Juli Zeh skillfully turns a New Year’s Day bike ride into an unexpectedly dark, psychological family drama. Praise for Juli Zeh “Zeh challenges readers to consider how complicit we are in our current political dilemmas.” ― Los Angeles Times Praise for New Year “In this wrenching psychological portrait from Zeh, a character’s buried traumatic past distorts his memory and loosens his grip on reality...Zeh’s novel skillfully asks how a person can come to terms with a painful past that has been intentionally misremembered for the purpose of sustaining one’s mental health. Readers, though, will have no trouble remembering this.” ― Publishers Weekly , *starred review* “This spine-tingler captures the peak of what appears to be a spectacularly hallucinatory middle-aged crisis.” ― Kirkus Reviews , *starred review* “Zeh’s suspense writing is masterful. … In New Year , she spins a tale of the uncanny, as Henning encounters items from his childhood in this far-flung vacation destination, items that unlock a repressed childhood trauma. … Her straightforward style leaves few obstacles for the reader, and Price’s translation is crisp. This no-nonsense style lends itself well to fast-paced reading, keeping us in the tension that makes this book a page-turner.” ― World Literature Today "The prolific and award-winning German thriller novelist Julie Zeh places readers in Lanzarote, The Canary Islands, on a New Year’s Day when a man named Henning is out for an athletic bike ride. On reaching the Femés pass, a combination of untreated anxiety, middle-aged life stressors, and a strange coincidence lead Henning to a triggered memory about childhood. The eeriness of the landscapes’ familiarity and the trauma of what nearly killed Henning and his sister highlight how difficult it can be to integrate past pain into adult existence. It’s a tale of psychological dread that nonetheless retains visceral unease, and a terrific read for a winter’s day when you feel completely safe and warm at home."― Lithub Best Books of 2021 “Read New Year to have your heart moved, but also to see a virtuoso writer at work.” ― European Literature Network “A character piece and social critique wrapped in a psychological thriller, the intelligent and absorbing New Year is as much of a journey for the reader as for Henning, and the tension doesn’t slacken until the last page.” ― The Herald “ New Year is structured like Henning’s bike ride: the journey to the top that maps out Henning’s present and recent past; and the exhilarating ride down again, as we discover just why Henning is the way he is.” ― David’s Book World “Because both the thriller and the analysis of society are here intertwined so densely, New Year is perhaps Juli Zeh’s best book to date.” ― Süddeutsche Zeitung “ New Year is an impressively original book whose elegant construction testifies to Zeh’s writerly prowess.” ―New Books in German “Past experience is part of us, like a code in computer software―Zeh, in her usual straightforward way, has condensed this to make a compact novel.” ― Stern “A thrilling, cinematic story.” ― VPRO Boeken “With New Year , Juli Zeh has succeeded in writing a lost-memory thriller and at the same time an accurate psychogram of today’s overwhelmed fathers.” ―WDR 3 “With New Year , Juli Zeh shows that good entertainment can indeed be easily coupled with depth and literary quality. This psycho-thriller is thus well on its way to becoming a bestseller.” ―SRF 2 Kultur “Juli Zeh has written not only an enthralling psychogram of a man, but also quite nearly a classical tragedy.” ― Südwest Presse “This book develops into a rapid, exciting drama, the kind of which you might have never read before.” ― Der Kleinborsteler “An intense and gripping psychological thriller. The second part of this novel, impressive in its mastery of narrative, will cost you some hours of sleep.” ― Midi Libre “Once devoured, New Year obsesses its reader for days on end. Juli Zeh strikes hard and strikes home.” ― Transfuge “An experience of psychological dissection. New Year is a vertiginous plunge into the psyche of a man straining under the weight of what he believes he must achieve