Es geht uns gut

The novel centres on the Sterk family villa in Hietzing, Vienna, which the grandson Philipp inherits and sets about clearing out. That frame story runs from April to June 2001. Set into it are episodes from the family’s history between 1938 and 1989, each told from a single point of view: those of his grandparents, Alma and Richard Sterk, and his parents, Ingrid and Peter Erlach.

The grandparents’ lives mirror Austrian history from before the war to after it, and the values of the bourgeois world they belonged to. The title, which means ’we are doing fine’, is ironic.