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All Days Are Night
All Days Are Night is the story of Gillian, a successful and beautiful TV host, content with her marriage to Matthias, even if she feels restless at times. One night following an argument, the couple has a terrible car accident: Matthias, who is drunk, hits a deer on the wet road and dies in the crash. Gillian wakes up in the hospital completely disfigured. Only slowly, after many twists and turns, does she put her life back together, and reconnects with a love interest of the past who becomes a possible future—or so it seems.
In Stamm’s unadorned and haunting style, this new novel forcefully tells the story of a woman who loses her life but must stay alive all the same. How she works everything out in the end is at once surprising and incredibly rewarding.
Praise for Peter Stamm
"Stamm is a master of quietly deliberative stories. In Seven Years, as in the best of his work, he puts often simple-seeming characters through extraordinary paces, all the more remarkable given the Carver-like restraint he exercises in his writing." —Bookforum
"With a patient and impressive commitment to realism, this Swiss novel follows the course of a complicated, troubled marriage...Though Stamm pulls off a quietly spectacular plot twist halfway through the book, he never loses sight of the quotidian things that erode or transform relationships over time: an oddly personal disagreement about the merits of 'Rain Man', or the 'piles of romance novels, Christian manuals, and Polish magazines' that crowd a lover's apartment." —The New Yorker
"Seven Years is a powerful, enlightening novel about the eternal search for contentment in life, the often fickle nature of love, and the knowledge that in reality, happiness is rarely how we dreamed it would be." —The Daily Beast
In Stamm’s unadorned and haunting style, this new novel forcefully tells the story of a woman who loses her life but must stay alive all the same. How she works everything out in the end is at once surprising and incredibly rewarding.
Praise for Peter Stamm
"Stamm is a master of quietly deliberative stories. In Seven Years, as in the best of his work, he puts often simple-seeming characters through extraordinary paces, all the more remarkable given the Carver-like restraint he exercises in his writing." —Bookforum
"With a patient and impressive commitment to realism, this Swiss novel follows the course of a complicated, troubled marriage...Though Stamm pulls off a quietly spectacular plot twist halfway through the book, he never loses sight of the quotidian things that erode or transform relationships over time: an oddly personal disagreement about the merits of 'Rain Man', or the 'piles of romance novels, Christian manuals, and Polish magazines' that crowd a lover's apartment." —The New Yorker
"Seven Years is a powerful, enlightening novel about the eternal search for contentment in life, the often fickle nature of love, and the knowledge that in reality, happiness is rarely how we dreamed it would be." —The Daily Beast
189 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
21 people are currently reading
924 people want to read
About the author
Peter Stamm
63 books358 followersPeter Stamm grew up in Weinfelden in the canton of Thurgau the son of an accountant. After completing primary and secondary school he spent three years as an apprentice accountant and then 5 as an accountant. He then chose to go back to school at the University of Zurich taking courses in a variety of fields including English studies, Business informatics, Psychology, and Psychopathology. During this time he also worked as an intern at a psychiatric clinic. After living for a time in New York, Paris, and Scandinavia he settled down in 1990 as a writer and freelance journalist in Zurich. He wrote articles for, among others, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Tages-Anzeiger, Die Weltwoche, and the satirical newspaper Nebelspalter. Since 1997 he has belonged to the editorial staff of the quarterly literary magazine "Entwürfe für Literatur." He lives in Winterthur.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
December 24, 2014
This short novel left me with a lot of ambivalent feelings: on the one hand, it is quite spare and unflinching. The unadorned prose seeps melancholia. On the other hand, there is quite a distance between the reader and the text. This produces a curious lack of affect, with the novel ultimately being underwhelming.
Of course, that could be precisely the impact the author was aiming for. I did find myself mulling this book after I had finished it. Somehow it crept into my brain space, as certain books are wont to do – a thought, a reference, a comparison; anything can produce a touchstone for the reader. Whether or not this means it is a good or well-written book is, however, debatable.
All Days Are Night is the first novel by Peter Stamm I have read; a brief bio mentions him being a finalist for the 2013 Man Booker International Prize. Stamm lives in Switzerland and writes in German; this was translated by Michael Hofmann.
I mention these facts because there is a definite European feel to the novel, a kind of Savoir-faire wrapped up in fatalism, like a mystery within an enigma. This curious duality is reflected in the title, from a William Shakespeare quote:
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
It is also one of those novels that not only start as one thing but then end up as something totally different, but one where those turns are quite unexpected.
It begins with Matthias and Gillian having a quarrel at a party, and then ending up in a car accident on the way home. Matthias, who remains a cipher throughout the novel, is killed, while Gillian’s face is disfigured. Okay, the reader thinks, I can see where this is going ...
We then learn the reason for the argument: Gillian posed nude for an artist called Hubert. The second part of the book tells Hubert’s story, his estrangement from his wife and son and his disaffection with his own artistic integrity and capability.
Hubert and Gillian eventually meet up again at a mountain resort, where she is entertainment director. Both are changed people. I do not want to give the ending away, suffice it to say that it is heartbreaking and liberating at the same time. Ultimately we realise that the accident was merely the start of Gillian’s evolution as both a woman and a unique human being.
There is a lot here too about art and representation, and how we derive meaning from the world through imagery and sensory impressions. Hubert’s crisis of art is quite convincing.
Stamm also paints a believable portrait of Gillian as a television producer and writer, whose vocation very much relies on her beauty. When this is destroyed by the accident, it results in her own professional and existential crisis.
We really do get a glimpse into the souls of these two damaged and disparate people, and the forces – a lot of it beyond their control – that both attract them to, and repel them from, each other.
Worth reading if you like fiction that probes into the psycho-pathology of its characters, without pandering to its readers, and with no clear-cut resolutions to the complex questions it poses. Perhaps little joy to be had here, but a smorgasbord of thought.
Of course, that could be precisely the impact the author was aiming for. I did find myself mulling this book after I had finished it. Somehow it crept into my brain space, as certain books are wont to do – a thought, a reference, a comparison; anything can produce a touchstone for the reader. Whether or not this means it is a good or well-written book is, however, debatable.
All Days Are Night is the first novel by Peter Stamm I have read; a brief bio mentions him being a finalist for the 2013 Man Booker International Prize. Stamm lives in Switzerland and writes in German; this was translated by Michael Hofmann.
I mention these facts because there is a definite European feel to the novel, a kind of Savoir-faire wrapped up in fatalism, like a mystery within an enigma. This curious duality is reflected in the title, from a William Shakespeare quote:
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
It is also one of those novels that not only start as one thing but then end up as something totally different, but one where those turns are quite unexpected.
It begins with Matthias and Gillian having a quarrel at a party, and then ending up in a car accident on the way home. Matthias, who remains a cipher throughout the novel, is killed, while Gillian’s face is disfigured. Okay, the reader thinks, I can see where this is going ...
We then learn the reason for the argument: Gillian posed nude for an artist called Hubert. The second part of the book tells Hubert’s story, his estrangement from his wife and son and his disaffection with his own artistic integrity and capability.
Hubert and Gillian eventually meet up again at a mountain resort, where she is entertainment director. Both are changed people. I do not want to give the ending away, suffice it to say that it is heartbreaking and liberating at the same time. Ultimately we realise that the accident was merely the start of Gillian’s evolution as both a woman and a unique human being.
There is a lot here too about art and representation, and how we derive meaning from the world through imagery and sensory impressions. Hubert’s crisis of art is quite convincing.
Stamm also paints a believable portrait of Gillian as a television producer and writer, whose vocation very much relies on her beauty. When this is destroyed by the accident, it results in her own professional and existential crisis.
We really do get a glimpse into the souls of these two damaged and disparate people, and the forces – a lot of it beyond their control – that both attract them to, and repel them from, each other.
Worth reading if you like fiction that probes into the psycho-pathology of its characters, without pandering to its readers, and with no clear-cut resolutions to the complex questions it poses. Perhaps little joy to be had here, but a smorgasbord of thought.
January 31, 2016
What is it that I like about Peter Stamm? This is a question I have to ask myself, as I’m getting to be something of a habitué of his work: Seven Years, the excellent We're Flying, and now All Days Are Night.
Stamm’s schtick is bleached-out, toneless Swiss-German anomie, rendered in an elegant, minimalist prose style. “Warm,” “loveable,” “larger than life,” “life-affirming,” “a caper”—these are not things I would predict you will ever find yourself saying of a character, or a novel, by Stamm.
Still, something in him appeals to my inner Edward Hopper. Here is Huburt, one of the main characters of All Days are Night, waiting to put his car on a train going through a (presumably Alpine) tunnel:
He thought about how futile it would be to try and capture this scene in a painting, the late snow, the damp chilly air, the slopes that came in and out of view behind the veil of snowflakes, the crudity of the concrete ramp and the tunnel entrance.
Futile to capture in a painting, perhaps, but it’s easy enough to imagine in a certain kind of European art film (in a very long take.) Similarly the view from a multistory car park enjoyed by Gillian, the novel’s female protagonist:
She looked out over the industrial buildings, at the multilane highways packed with traffic bordered by trimmed poplars, at the mountains in the distance, dimly visible through the downpour. She felt cold.
You get the general idea—yet, wait! This novel, Stamm’s latest, actually has some glimmer of human warmth towards the end, to my astonishment. In fact, it changes character quite noticeably half-way through.
When we are first introduced to Hubert, he is a conceptual artist with a successful show of images of women who have agreed to be photographed naked as they go about normal daily activities in their homes. Gillian, meanwhile, is an actress and TV presenter, who literally loses her face in a car accident (that’s not a spoiler; it’s how the book opens.) This narrative scenario seems calculated in an almost labored way as a mechanism for triggering meditations on identity and authenticity. Are we our bodies? Are we our faces? Do we acquire selfhood through the gaze of others? Here is Gillian watching a recording of her former face on screen:
An unexpected noise, a reflection, a sudden memory changed the expression; for a split second the camera created a person there had never been before and who would never exist again. Twenty-five frames a second, twenty-five people who didn’t have much more in common than their physical details, hair and eye color, height and weight. It was only the linking of the pictures that created the fuzziness that constituted a human being.
So far, so predictable for a reader of Stamm; but, at a certain point in the novel, we start to take a more unexpected direction. There is a move from the city to the mountains, and a quite different social setting. The characters’ emotional relationships become less mannered and more natural; the characters themselves less “fuzzy” (in the sense Stamm defines above.) The metaliterary reflections on art and its functions also begin to change tack. “Perhaps I just need to reconcile myself to the idea that people want pictures to hang on their walls,” Hubert remarks rather dolefully at one point.
This may be fanciful on my part, but I took this line as self-referential. Perhaps Stamm is beginning to feel the need to reconcile himself to the idea that people want characters in their novels—perhaps even sometimes sympathetic ones—and plots that actually go somewhere, rather than meandering around in a chilly conceptual labyrinth like the one he seems initially intent on setting up. That certainly seems to be the direction Stamm is heading in for the last third of this novel, in a tentative, baby-steps manner. It’s an intriguing new development for the dedicated Stamm-watcher. I wonder where he’s going to go next.
Stamm’s schtick is bleached-out, toneless Swiss-German anomie, rendered in an elegant, minimalist prose style. “Warm,” “loveable,” “larger than life,” “life-affirming,” “a caper”—these are not things I would predict you will ever find yourself saying of a character, or a novel, by Stamm.
Still, something in him appeals to my inner Edward Hopper. Here is Huburt, one of the main characters of All Days are Night, waiting to put his car on a train going through a (presumably Alpine) tunnel:
He thought about how futile it would be to try and capture this scene in a painting, the late snow, the damp chilly air, the slopes that came in and out of view behind the veil of snowflakes, the crudity of the concrete ramp and the tunnel entrance.
Futile to capture in a painting, perhaps, but it’s easy enough to imagine in a certain kind of European art film (in a very long take.) Similarly the view from a multistory car park enjoyed by Gillian, the novel’s female protagonist:
She looked out over the industrial buildings, at the multilane highways packed with traffic bordered by trimmed poplars, at the mountains in the distance, dimly visible through the downpour. She felt cold.
You get the general idea—yet, wait! This novel, Stamm’s latest, actually has some glimmer of human warmth towards the end, to my astonishment. In fact, it changes character quite noticeably half-way through.
When we are first introduced to Hubert, he is a conceptual artist with a successful show of images of women who have agreed to be photographed naked as they go about normal daily activities in their homes. Gillian, meanwhile, is an actress and TV presenter, who literally loses her face in a car accident (that’s not a spoiler; it’s how the book opens.) This narrative scenario seems calculated in an almost labored way as a mechanism for triggering meditations on identity and authenticity. Are we our bodies? Are we our faces? Do we acquire selfhood through the gaze of others? Here is Gillian watching a recording of her former face on screen:
An unexpected noise, a reflection, a sudden memory changed the expression; for a split second the camera created a person there had never been before and who would never exist again. Twenty-five frames a second, twenty-five people who didn’t have much more in common than their physical details, hair and eye color, height and weight. It was only the linking of the pictures that created the fuzziness that constituted a human being.
So far, so predictable for a reader of Stamm; but, at a certain point in the novel, we start to take a more unexpected direction. There is a move from the city to the mountains, and a quite different social setting. The characters’ emotional relationships become less mannered and more natural; the characters themselves less “fuzzy” (in the sense Stamm defines above.) The metaliterary reflections on art and its functions also begin to change tack. “Perhaps I just need to reconcile myself to the idea that people want pictures to hang on their walls,” Hubert remarks rather dolefully at one point.
This may be fanciful on my part, but I took this line as self-referential. Perhaps Stamm is beginning to feel the need to reconcile himself to the idea that people want characters in their novels—perhaps even sometimes sympathetic ones—and plots that actually go somewhere, rather than meandering around in a chilly conceptual labyrinth like the one he seems initially intent on setting up. That certainly seems to be the direction Stamm is heading in for the last third of this novel, in a tentative, baby-steps manner. It’s an intriguing new development for the dedicated Stamm-watcher. I wonder where he’s going to go next.
November 12, 2014
The range of emotions that the author conveys in this short novel is astonishing. Gillian feels guilt, pain, remorse and finally happiness. Hubert feels stifled, jealous and confused. This book brings to light the contrast between what we are on the outside and who we actually are behind the façade. Can Gillian and Hubert reconnect and get beyond their past? Can Hubert fully disconnect from his wife and move on? ALL DAYS ARE NIGHT is a short read, yet it is full of dialogue that will make you contemplate life, personal identity and the passage of time.
Read my full review here: http://thebookbindersdaughter.com/201...
Read my full review here: http://thebookbindersdaughter.com/201...
June 22, 2018
I ask myself why was this book written? The two main characters, Gillian disfigured in a car accident and Hubert a tormented artist are both shallow, self-centred and full of guilt. They met, they go apart, they come together again and then who knows. It's a short novel, maybe it would have worked better as a short story.
August 16, 2018
This book had a pretty while simple language, beautiful setting descriptions and miserable, but real and substantial characters. I really liked how this book started to switch perspective after a while, it made the story way more complex and both protagonists very interesting.
A book I really care about and I highly recommend! Peter Stamm is always a good choice!
A book I really care about and I highly recommend! Peter Stamm is always a good choice!
August 18, 2017
Peter Stamm kann schreiben, das ist unbestritten. Auch sein Roman "Nacht ist der Tag" ist somit eine gut ausgeführte und schön formulierte Geschichte über Verlust, Liebe und Neuanfang. Doch leider fühlte sich das Buch immer wieder etwas zu stark nach einem eher billigen Schundroman an. Dies liegt weder an der Sprache noch an der eigentlichen Struktur, sondern eher an der etwas flachen Zeichnung der Charaktere und ihrer Probleme.
Wenn eine bekannte TV-Moderatorin in einem Unfall ihr Ehemann und Aussehen verliert, dann ist dies eine Kumulation aus getroffenen Entscheidungen - und doch der Moment für einen neuen Beginn im Leben. Eingewebt in die Kunstszene und ausgeschmückt mit diversen Rückblenden möchte Stamm hier ein tiefgründiges Portrait von Mann und Frau beschreiben, scheitert teilweise aber an etwas platten Gedanken. Angenehm blieb das Buch aber immer.
Wenn eine bekannte TV-Moderatorin in einem Unfall ihr Ehemann und Aussehen verliert, dann ist dies eine Kumulation aus getroffenen Entscheidungen - und doch der Moment für einen neuen Beginn im Leben. Eingewebt in die Kunstszene und ausgeschmückt mit diversen Rückblenden möchte Stamm hier ein tiefgründiges Portrait von Mann und Frau beschreiben, scheitert teilweise aber an etwas platten Gedanken. Angenehm blieb das Buch aber immer.
November 1, 2017
3.5 stars
Certainly a writer to follow. I like his understated prose and the ethos of this book -you always can start a new life. But I cannot quite put my finger on something which is missing. Maybe, his main female character is slightly cartoonish.
I will try to read the one of his other novels to understand better what i think.
The translation is superb.
Certainly a writer to follow. I like his understated prose and the ethos of this book -you always can start a new life. But I cannot quite put my finger on something which is missing. Maybe, his main female character is slightly cartoonish.
I will try to read the one of his other novels to understand better what i think.
The translation is superb.
March 5, 2017
Un 3,5
December 19, 2015
“All Days are Night” (“Nacht ist der Tag”), Swiss-German novelist Peter Stamm’s latest work, initially feels more like a late-90s Miramax cinematic import than a work of literature. In its first half, it’s easy to imagine its stainless steel Swiss upper-middle class world filmed in saturated blue-greys, with terse and elegantly subtitled dialogue evoking, but never quite fully exploring, de rigeur continental themes: art, beauty and the proximity of death.
The story begins with a timeworn deus ex machina when a car accident nearly kills Gillian, an arts reporter, disfiguring her face and damaging her professional prospects. The crash stems from a drunken argument with her boyfriend Mathias over a series of nude photos of Gillian that he accidentally discovers. Their importance isn’t immediately clear. Are they the sign of infidelity, evidence of a distant inner life that disrupts his illusions of intimacy, or something else?
It turns out that they’re just the product another of another continental narrative fixation: Gillian has made an impulsive trip to the studio of the enigmatic artist Hubert, a subject of her reportage who’s become an object of fascination. After a lengthy duel of personalities, she agrees to pose nude for reasons that remain inscrutable, except to reinforce literary notions that artist-model relationships have either an erotic charge or awaken sublime windows on questions of truth and beauty. As Gillian faces a lengthy recovery from her injuries, her thoughts are dominated by the encounter with Hubert but her reflections never feel like anything more than a series of middle- to highbrow conceits. The reader never feels the grip of painful experience, only an aura of mildly philosophical froideur.
The novel shifts dramatically in its second half, which takes place several years later. Hubert has abandoned a troubled relationship to become an artist-in-residence in a small village in the Swiss Alps. With no ideas or materials for an upcoming show, he coincidentally meets Gillian working at a nearby hotel, her face now reconstructed, and they begin a tentative relationship. At this point, Stamm appears to mostly abandon his earlier themes in favor of more contingent, unpredictable action. The remaining narrative is more flexible, with convincing motives and a natural concatenation of events that’s sometimes organic to the point of banality.
So what’s Stamm’s point? He vaguely suggests that lofty ideals are destined to crash upon the reefs of life's disappointments but in the end, “All Days are Night” is too mannered to show all of its cards. The novel is diverting, atmospheric, and sometimes moving but its restrained literary vocabulary never generates real sparks. It’s natural to expect irresolution in modern fiction, but Stamm is often truly mystifying.
The story begins with a timeworn deus ex machina when a car accident nearly kills Gillian, an arts reporter, disfiguring her face and damaging her professional prospects. The crash stems from a drunken argument with her boyfriend Mathias over a series of nude photos of Gillian that he accidentally discovers. Their importance isn’t immediately clear. Are they the sign of infidelity, evidence of a distant inner life that disrupts his illusions of intimacy, or something else?
It turns out that they’re just the product another of another continental narrative fixation: Gillian has made an impulsive trip to the studio of the enigmatic artist Hubert, a subject of her reportage who’s become an object of fascination. After a lengthy duel of personalities, she agrees to pose nude for reasons that remain inscrutable, except to reinforce literary notions that artist-model relationships have either an erotic charge or awaken sublime windows on questions of truth and beauty. As Gillian faces a lengthy recovery from her injuries, her thoughts are dominated by the encounter with Hubert but her reflections never feel like anything more than a series of middle- to highbrow conceits. The reader never feels the grip of painful experience, only an aura of mildly philosophical froideur.
The novel shifts dramatically in its second half, which takes place several years later. Hubert has abandoned a troubled relationship to become an artist-in-residence in a small village in the Swiss Alps. With no ideas or materials for an upcoming show, he coincidentally meets Gillian working at a nearby hotel, her face now reconstructed, and they begin a tentative relationship. At this point, Stamm appears to mostly abandon his earlier themes in favor of more contingent, unpredictable action. The remaining narrative is more flexible, with convincing motives and a natural concatenation of events that’s sometimes organic to the point of banality.
So what’s Stamm’s point? He vaguely suggests that lofty ideals are destined to crash upon the reefs of life's disappointments but in the end, “All Days are Night” is too mannered to show all of its cards. The novel is diverting, atmospheric, and sometimes moving but its restrained literary vocabulary never generates real sparks. It’s natural to expect irresolution in modern fiction, but Stamm is often truly mystifying.
July 15, 2016
I approached this book with some trepidation, and the first few pages just increased my concern. I had been looking for a book that would draw me in, and this one seemed to be the kind that would require a great deal of work on my part--something I don't mind, but generally I take my time approaching that kind of literature, and I needed to return this book to a friend and soon.
A few pages in, the circumstances changed, allowing the narration to become more standard, more clear, and more engaging. Soon I was completely sucked into the puzzling world of the protagonist. The book is not long, so by the end of the morning I'd set aside to read this work without interruption, I'd finished the read, but then began the reflection, and that may continue for days. So much is wrapped into this tale! (And surprisingly, so much that speaks to ME.)
I am delighted and grateful for the good circumstances that brought this very unique, deftly crafted book into my universe.
A few pages in, the circumstances changed, allowing the narration to become more standard, more clear, and more engaging. Soon I was completely sucked into the puzzling world of the protagonist. The book is not long, so by the end of the morning I'd set aside to read this work without interruption, I'd finished the read, but then began the reflection, and that may continue for days. So much is wrapped into this tale! (And surprisingly, so much that speaks to ME.)
I am delighted and grateful for the good circumstances that brought this very unique, deftly crafted book into my universe.
January 20, 2015
a "typical" stamm story, laconic, detailed in daily mundanity, low slow burn of crumbling interpersonal relationships, but also definitely a new twist by him in that the character(s) transcend their 'lots' and go beyond what stamm's folks usually do, that is, just leave. here, gillian, our protag, cannnot leave, becuase she already has been transformed in ways that she is not she anymore. or is she? ach, i can't make this clear, but for stamm fans everywhere.
October 30, 2017
Einfach sehr gut.
Ich liebe den Stil, der wunderschön ist in seiner Eleganz und Schlichtheit. Less is more.
Die Handlung konnte mich auch fesseln. Die Interaktion zwischen Leben und Kunst, zwischen Sein und Aussehen, zwischen "Sein" und Körper, zwischen Leben und Umgebung, zwischen "Ich" und Anderen... Stamm nimmt all diese Elemente und kombiniert sie kompetent in dieser einen Geschichte.
(Außerdem fand ich die Gegend interessant: die Schweizer Berge, das Hotelwesen... - Ich weiß nicht, was es ist, aber ich habe eine große Faszination für Bücher/Filme, die sich in einem Hotel abspielen. Keine Ahnung, woher das Stammt. *ba dum tss*)
Das Einzige, was mich ein bisschen störte, war, dass die Charaktere manchmal ein wenig flach und stereotyp wirkten.
Ich liebe den Stil, der wunderschön ist in seiner Eleganz und Schlichtheit. Less is more.
Die Handlung konnte mich auch fesseln. Die Interaktion zwischen Leben und Kunst, zwischen Sein und Aussehen, zwischen "Sein" und Körper, zwischen Leben und Umgebung, zwischen "Ich" und Anderen... Stamm nimmt all diese Elemente und kombiniert sie kompetent in dieser einen Geschichte.
(Außerdem fand ich die Gegend interessant: die Schweizer Berge, das Hotelwesen... - Ich weiß nicht, was es ist, aber ich habe eine große Faszination für Bücher/Filme, die sich in einem Hotel abspielen. Keine Ahnung, woher das Stammt. *ba dum tss*)
Das Einzige, was mich ein bisschen störte, war, dass die Charaktere manchmal ein wenig flach und stereotyp wirkten.
April 3, 2015
A popular television reporter, Gillian, wakes up in the hospital to a disfigured face and a dead husband. Matthias, her husband, drove the car drunk, hit a deer and caused the couple to crash. She lost her beautiful visage and through numerous surgeries she’ll get a face back that was never hers. “It’s relatively straightforward to put an ear back, said the doctor, but a nose has a great many delicate blood vessels. We are going to have to build you a new one,” the doctor, hand mirror in his grip tells Gillian. “It doesn’t look very pretty at the moment, he said, but I still think it’s a good idea for you to take a look at it.”
She’s lost her identity. We’re all completely connected to our faces and bodies no matter what we think or desire. It’s a visual world. For some more than others. Gillian must deal with this loss and reconcile with whatever the surgeons reconstruct. Even her parents can barely deal with the new reality. Her mother can’t even look at her. Reminds me of the facial transplants completed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Final result: not exactly you and not exactly the donor.
“Her life before the accident had been one long performance. Her job, the studio, the designer clothes, the trips to cities, the meals in good restaurants, the visits to her parents and Matthias’s mother. It must have been a lie if it was so easy to destroy with a moment’s inattention, a false move. The accident was bound to happen sooner or later, whether in the form of a sudden catastrophe or a gradual unraveling, it was coming.”
Not only does she have to deal with reconstructive surgeries but career loss. To rebuild, Gillian escapes both the city and the tragedy. She heads to her parents’ isolated vacation home in the mountains. Gillian encounters an artist, Hubert, from her past that may or may not feature into her future. The fight between Gillian and Matthias occurred because Matthias found naked photos of Gillian that Hubert— an interview subject-- took. Matthias drank too much at a party the couple attended and despite their friends’ concerns he insisted on driving. German author Peter Stamm revisits the encounters between Gillian and Hubert that caused tension between Gillian and her late husband.
As a cultural reporter, Gillian dipped into the arts and music scenes. An intriguing world combined with an electrifying profession. Hubert is a fame-fueled artist. Neither Gillian nor Hubert is terribly sympathetic. However they are both relatable and intriguing. Losing one’s looks, one’s face, one’s identity in that manner. A ghastly, unimaginable thought. What would you do? How would you cope?
The novel beautifully traverses past and present. Stamm writes in an effectively laconic and melancholy style. He’s exploring appearances from various angles. It’s a gripping read about art and connection.
review posted at http://entertainmentrealm.com
She’s lost her identity. We’re all completely connected to our faces and bodies no matter what we think or desire. It’s a visual world. For some more than others. Gillian must deal with this loss and reconcile with whatever the surgeons reconstruct. Even her parents can barely deal with the new reality. Her mother can’t even look at her. Reminds me of the facial transplants completed at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Final result: not exactly you and not exactly the donor.
“Her life before the accident had been one long performance. Her job, the studio, the designer clothes, the trips to cities, the meals in good restaurants, the visits to her parents and Matthias’s mother. It must have been a lie if it was so easy to destroy with a moment’s inattention, a false move. The accident was bound to happen sooner or later, whether in the form of a sudden catastrophe or a gradual unraveling, it was coming.”
Not only does she have to deal with reconstructive surgeries but career loss. To rebuild, Gillian escapes both the city and the tragedy. She heads to her parents’ isolated vacation home in the mountains. Gillian encounters an artist, Hubert, from her past that may or may not feature into her future. The fight between Gillian and Matthias occurred because Matthias found naked photos of Gillian that Hubert— an interview subject-- took. Matthias drank too much at a party the couple attended and despite their friends’ concerns he insisted on driving. German author Peter Stamm revisits the encounters between Gillian and Hubert that caused tension between Gillian and her late husband.
As a cultural reporter, Gillian dipped into the arts and music scenes. An intriguing world combined with an electrifying profession. Hubert is a fame-fueled artist. Neither Gillian nor Hubert is terribly sympathetic. However they are both relatable and intriguing. Losing one’s looks, one’s face, one’s identity in that manner. A ghastly, unimaginable thought. What would you do? How would you cope?
The novel beautifully traverses past and present. Stamm writes in an effectively laconic and melancholy style. He’s exploring appearances from various angles. It’s a gripping read about art and connection.
review posted at http://entertainmentrealm.com
June 4, 2014
Great simple, precise language with fresh images, metaphors and a subtle irony that portray, sad to say, cliché life dilemmas with cliché situations and offer cliché answers. Astounding gap between the author's brilliance to capture inner states in words and his analytic failure to come up with surprising events. The whole 'action' of the book circles around the emotions and expectations of the protagonists, most of them pretty predictable. The last pages fake a happy end that gets unmasked by the mere facts, after a book-long oscillation between hope and cynicism. Disappointing also to have to read - once again, goodness - endless pages about an artist's creative block. If this formally very talented author could work over WHAT he has to say, his books would become timeless classics.
November 23, 2018
One night following an argument, a couple has a terrible car accident: Matthias, who is drunk, hits a deer on the wet road and dies in the crash. Gillian wakes up in the hospital completely disfigured, putting her life back together is a slow process. This novel tells the story of a woman who loses her life but must stay alive all the same. Here are my favorite quotes from the book:
If it’s reality you want, I suggest you look out the window.
The only driver for his work was desire, a kind of hunger for reality, for presence, and also for intimacy, as opposed to publicity. In a very wide sense, he was interested in transcendence.
That’s the thing with reality, he said, you can’t repeat it to order, you can’t correct it. Perhaps we should read more books.
If it’s reality you want, I suggest you look out the window.
The only driver for his work was desire, a kind of hunger for reality, for presence, and also for intimacy, as opposed to publicity. In a very wide sense, he was interested in transcendence.
That’s the thing with reality, he said, you can’t repeat it to order, you can’t correct it. Perhaps we should read more books.
April 21, 2015
I don't usually like to be harsh with reviews but this one isn't worth even poolside time.
September 20, 2023
2.5 ⭐️ (rounded up for now)
I didn’t really like this book much, I guess it started quite well and was intriguing but definitely fell quite flat as it progressed because there was no real meaning I found. All Days are Night starts with Gillian waking up in hospital after a car crash that killed her husband Mathias and left her with a disfigured face. What follows is her thinking back at what led up to the crash with the spark being her posing for an artist/photographer Hubert. The reader thinks the story is going to go one way but then part two arrives and we’re pulled forward in time around seven-ish years and now we’re following Hubert as he deals with the breakdown of his marriage and struggles with artistic inspiration. There is more to the plot but I don’t wish to give anything away… except there’s not all that much to because very little really happens. I found this quite a frustrating read at times with two rather plain characters that I just didn’t feel all that much for. I think what Stamm was trying to say about changing the course of your life despite difficult times, beauty standards and the struggles of being an artist were alright but didn’t really go anywhere. He puts in the effort and the book is well written and translated but there’s no real end point or crux to the story that you can hold onto. I may read another of Stamm’s works but in no rush to do at the moment.
I didn’t really like this book much, I guess it started quite well and was intriguing but definitely fell quite flat as it progressed because there was no real meaning I found. All Days are Night starts with Gillian waking up in hospital after a car crash that killed her husband Mathias and left her with a disfigured face. What follows is her thinking back at what led up to the crash with the spark being her posing for an artist/photographer Hubert. The reader thinks the story is going to go one way but then part two arrives and we’re pulled forward in time around seven-ish years and now we’re following Hubert as he deals with the breakdown of his marriage and struggles with artistic inspiration. There is more to the plot but I don’t wish to give anything away… except there’s not all that much to because very little really happens. I found this quite a frustrating read at times with two rather plain characters that I just didn’t feel all that much for. I think what Stamm was trying to say about changing the course of your life despite difficult times, beauty standards and the struggles of being an artist were alright but didn’t really go anywhere. He puts in the effort and the book is well written and translated but there’s no real end point or crux to the story that you can hold onto. I may read another of Stamm’s works but in no rush to do at the moment.
September 3, 2018
Mi primer acercamiento a un escritor que con cada libro me ha ido gustando más.
July 22, 2024
Ich glaube, ich bin etwas zu enttäuscht von der Richtung, die das Buch genommen hat.
Ich hätte gedacht, das wir uns mehr für Gillian interessieren würden, für ihren Unfall, ihre Remission und ihre Gefühle bezüglich dieser Ereignisse. Aber letztendlich ist es eher eine Art Liebensgeschichte.
Das ist wirklich kein Buch für mich.
Ich hätte gedacht, das wir uns mehr für Gillian interessieren würden, für ihren Unfall, ihre Remission und ihre Gefühle bezüglich dieser Ereignisse. Aber letztendlich ist es eher eine Art Liebensgeschichte.
Das ist wirklich kein Buch für mich.
May 31, 2016
The Unraveling
Stamm's 2001 novel, Unformed Landscape, arguably his best work, opens with a woman in the arctic north of Norway who breaks her routine to travel south to France, and then returns. His latest work, All Days Are Night, begins with a woman in a similarly featureless environment:
It also becomes clear that Gillian and Matthias had been quarreling. The trigger appears to be a set of nude photographs of her taken by an artist called Hubert, who specializes in photographing and painting ordinary women going about their work naked. Most of the first part of the novel (short, like almost all Stamm's work) is devoted to Gillian's memories of her relationship with Hubert. But the subject is not sex. What Hubert challenges most in Gillian is her sense of identity. Posing for him takes her back to her training as an actress:
In the second part of the book, some years later, Hubert is suffering his own identity crisis. He has virtually stopped painting, and when he accepts an invitation to mount a show at a small resort in the Alps, it is less about creativity than escape. What follows is one of most excruciating accounts of artist's block that I have read—excruciating because, like so many others, I have been there too. Hubert does begin work on a show, but it consists of unraveling rope or pieces of fabric and displaying the shreds—an apt metaphor for the recent arc of both his life and Gillian's.
Stamm is a bleak writer; his almost aseptic sparseness is his main attraction. But he has developed a special kind of ending that I have noticed in several of his novels. Quite late in each book, when the characters appear to have reached rock bottom, there seem to be hints of transformation or rebirth; can this be a happy ending? Well no, he is not so sappy; he always steers away again, back towards his bleak self. But not all the way back; he leaves just a glimmer of hope. In On a Day Like This, the book of his I read most recently, I was infuriated by the emotional bait-and-switch. But here not. Indeed, I was drawn into the lives of both main characters from the beginning, perhaps because both were artists or performers, which is my trade as well. I wanted them to find themselves, to come through. And maybe they do.
Stamm's 2001 novel, Unformed Landscape, arguably his best work, opens with a woman in the arctic north of Norway who breaks her routine to travel south to France, and then returns. His latest work, All Days Are Night, begins with a woman in a similarly featureless environment:
Half wake up then drift away, alternately surfacing and lapsing back into weightlessness. Gillian is lying in water with a blue luminescence. Within it her body looks yellowish, but wherever it breaks the surface, it disappears into darkness.The setting, though, is a hi-tech hospital in Zurich. At 39, Gillian has achieved fame as a Swiss television host; she has an English mother, hence her name. It soon appears that she is recovering from a car crash that killed her husband, another entertainment personality named Matthias. Although her body is merely bruised, she has suffered facial injuries that will take many months of plastic surgery to put right.
It also becomes clear that Gillian and Matthias had been quarreling. The trigger appears to be a set of nude photographs of her taken by an artist called Hubert, who specializes in photographing and painting ordinary women going about their work naked. Most of the first part of the novel (short, like almost all Stamm's work) is devoted to Gillian's memories of her relationship with Hubert. But the subject is not sex. What Hubert challenges most in Gillian is her sense of identity. Posing for him takes her back to her training as an actress:
She thought about her early days at drama school, her strickenness when the teacher had criticized her. You're acting—that was his refrain—be yourself, show yourself. Only when she was completely exhausted, despairing and close to tears, did the teacher sometimes say, now that was the real you. Just for a moment. [Translation, as always, by the phenomenal Michael Hofmann.]It is more than her clothes that Hubert is taking away, it is the carefully-constructed identity behind which she is used to facing the world.
In the second part of the book, some years later, Hubert is suffering his own identity crisis. He has virtually stopped painting, and when he accepts an invitation to mount a show at a small resort in the Alps, it is less about creativity than escape. What follows is one of most excruciating accounts of artist's block that I have read—excruciating because, like so many others, I have been there too. Hubert does begin work on a show, but it consists of unraveling rope or pieces of fabric and displaying the shreds—an apt metaphor for the recent arc of both his life and Gillian's.
Stamm is a bleak writer; his almost aseptic sparseness is his main attraction. But he has developed a special kind of ending that I have noticed in several of his novels. Quite late in each book, when the characters appear to have reached rock bottom, there seem to be hints of transformation or rebirth; can this be a happy ending? Well no, he is not so sappy; he always steers away again, back towards his bleak self. But not all the way back; he leaves just a glimmer of hope. In On a Day Like This, the book of his I read most recently, I was infuriated by the emotional bait-and-switch. But here not. Indeed, I was drawn into the lives of both main characters from the beginning, perhaps because both were artists or performers, which is my trade as well. I wanted them to find themselves, to come through. And maybe they do.
April 2, 2020
3.5 stars
I ended up enjoying this book more than I thought i would for the first half. The characters and tone of the writing was quite muted and everything was kind of played down, however I liked the arc of the story and how it seemed to say, life has periods of going tragically wrong, but sometimes it goes quietly right too. I liked how Hubert and Gillian orbited each other for many years before their lives came back together again; it’s not the big, high romantic drama we often read and watch, but a sort of patient, serendipitous romance which is no less heartwarming for its maturity and convenience.
I ended up enjoying this book more than I thought i would for the first half. The characters and tone of the writing was quite muted and everything was kind of played down, however I liked the arc of the story and how it seemed to say, life has periods of going tragically wrong, but sometimes it goes quietly right too. I liked how Hubert and Gillian orbited each other for many years before their lives came back together again; it’s not the big, high romantic drama we often read and watch, but a sort of patient, serendipitous romance which is no less heartwarming for its maturity and convenience.
November 4, 2014
from kalireads.com:
Peter Stamm’s All Days Are Night opens with TV host Gillian in the hospital, disfigured after a car crash. Her husband, the drunk behind the wheel, was killed. But really, this book isn’t as depressing as it sounds.
Unlike other blockbuster books which feature a character with a disfigured face, John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van or Invisible Monsters by Chuck Pahalniuk, this isn’t a book about looking different. This is a book about how life goes on, about how the clock ticks past moments both brilliant and brutal.
What seems to be a story of Gillian’s struggle to recover dramatically shifts halfway through, to focus on an artist known for his paintings of nude housewives. As his life interweaves with Gillian’s several powerful times, this shift saves the book from an unbearable overexposure of one woman’s struggle.
All Days Are Night morphs into a love story, a falling-out-of-love story, with steamy sex and moments of crazed artistic frustration. The title quote, despite its dismal insinuation, comes from Shakespeare’s Love Sonnet 43:“All days are nights to see till I see thee,/And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.”
Stamm writes with little indication of change—conversations or shifts in scene blur in his writing as they do in life, time moving on unceremoniously. Stamm’s prose needs no formatting, as it cuts clearly to the big questions. He looks to what defines us, and what drives us, when we think we can’t go on.
Peter Stamm’s All Days Are Night opens with TV host Gillian in the hospital, disfigured after a car crash. Her husband, the drunk behind the wheel, was killed. But really, this book isn’t as depressing as it sounds.
Unlike other blockbuster books which feature a character with a disfigured face, John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van or Invisible Monsters by Chuck Pahalniuk, this isn’t a book about looking different. This is a book about how life goes on, about how the clock ticks past moments both brilliant and brutal.
What seems to be a story of Gillian’s struggle to recover dramatically shifts halfway through, to focus on an artist known for his paintings of nude housewives. As his life interweaves with Gillian’s several powerful times, this shift saves the book from an unbearable overexposure of one woman’s struggle.
All Days Are Night morphs into a love story, a falling-out-of-love story, with steamy sex and moments of crazed artistic frustration. The title quote, despite its dismal insinuation, comes from Shakespeare’s Love Sonnet 43:“All days are nights to see till I see thee,/And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.”
Stamm writes with little indication of change—conversations or shifts in scene blur in his writing as they do in life, time moving on unceremoniously. Stamm’s prose needs no formatting, as it cuts clearly to the big questions. He looks to what defines us, and what drives us, when we think we can’t go on.
October 17, 2014
All Days Are Night is a brooding reflection on the struggle between who we are and who we appear to be. Telling the story of a woman whose life and appearance are drastically changed following a car accident, the author explores our obsession with appearance and body image.
A novel that delves into body image issues could easily be trite and cliche, but this book never goes there. The author always gives primacy to his characters, and the result is an effective read.
The style of this book, with the narrative constantly shifting in time and place, may be jarring to some readers, but I enjoyed the challenge of keeping up. Recommended for people who like serious, challenging, and even experimental fiction.
A novel that delves into body image issues could easily be trite and cliche, but this book never goes there. The author always gives primacy to his characters, and the result is an effective read.
The style of this book, with the narrative constantly shifting in time and place, may be jarring to some readers, but I enjoyed the challenge of keeping up. Recommended for people who like serious, challenging, and even experimental fiction.
February 19, 2017
The title alone deserves 5 stars!! (Thank you Shakespeare). The first half of this book took my breath away as the pain and loss and suffering of Gillian was recounted. The landscape and cityscape were beautifully described in the whole book. I was disappointed with the second half - the focus on Hubert who was a spoilt pain in the butt needy artist and then the ending was disappointingly "soft". So 5 stars for the first half and 3 for the second half.
January 9, 2016
When a TV personality becomes horribly injured in a car crash that killed her husband, she begins to piece her life back together in a completely new way. While this novel has it's good moments, the characters are ultimately annoyingly unlikable. Stamm has a few standout passages, but most of the pages are full of dull prose and stale plot, all of which lead to a trivial end. Skip it.
December 16, 2014
From the beginning of this book I knew it was going to be a challenge to get through it. I never fully connected with the characters and was never invested in their future. I guess it just wasn't for me.
April 25, 2016
Een beetje zeurderig relaas van gebroken levens, zo onderkoeld verteld dat je als lezer wel eens afhaakt en de les ietwat misloopt. Knap geschreven, dat wel: benieuwd naar het boek waarmee Stamm genomineerd was voor de Man Booker...
June 9, 2017
Almost ran out of pen underlining in this. Beautiful.
December 1, 2018
Gillian is a beautiful TV presenter. At the start of the novel she is in hospital after a car crash which killed her husband. During her long and painful recovery, she thinks about her past life and the train of events which led up to the accident.
She wanted to be an actress originally but she wasn’t a good one because, as her drama teacher put it, you could always see her acting. Her later roles of presenter and wife of a journalist seem to have been more successful but Gillian still feels like she’s acting. I think this is what prompts her to approach an artist she has interviewed on her programme. Hulbert is famous for paintings nudes. Gillian at first insists that she remains clothed but suggests she poses nude after she’s disappointed by seeing Hulbert’s sketches. She wanted to see something new about herself. I find it interesting that she would look to her exterior to see something about herself and that she would look to someone else to find it. Unfortunately for Gillian, Hulbert can’t find her either. He keeps trying to get her to be present, in the moment, but nothing works. Gillian tries to seduce Hulbert, fails and leaves with the negatives of her nude photos. Gillian’s husband has these negatives developed and accuses Gillian of having an affair. They are going to a friend’s party and spend the evening drinking and avoiding each other. Gillian is supposed to be driving but her husband gets behind the wheel and the accident follows. Gillian feels guilty about her husband’s death. Gillian’s beautiful face is now gone and we leave her planning to visit her parents’ holiday home in the mountains while she decides what to do with her life.
Our attention turns to Hulbert. Six years have passed since Hulbert’s encounter with Gillian. We see that he was already struggling with his art when he was trying to paint Gillian. He has done no more work since. Instead he teaches art at a college and focuses on his son, his wife and maintaining his house. Unfortunately for him, his wife has decided he does not fulfill her and asks him to leave. When an offer to do an exhibition comes through at a mountain resort, Hulbert eventually agrees. Although nervous about producing any work to fill an exhibition, he desperately needs to escape from his current life.
Hulbert and Gillian re-connect at this resort: Gillian, now Jill, was instrumental in bringing him there. After a nervous breakdown caused by the exhibition and his personal situation, Hulbert is cared for by Jill and eventually their relationship becomes sexual. However, Hulbert’s ex-wife seems to find him a lot more interesting now he’s with someone else and starts saying that she’s not in a good place and that she needs him.
The novel ends with Hulbert away visiting his wife and returning as agreed, whilst Jill has decided to leave the mountain and take charge of her life. If Hulbert wants to be part of her new life, that’s fine, but his actions won’t determine hers. Jill is finally going to stop acting and start living.
I liked this book less than To The back of Beyond because the characters, especially Hulbert, felt less real to me. Having said that, I still enjoyed the sparse prose style very much. Plus there seems to be plenty to think about in Peter Stamm’s novels.
She wanted to be an actress originally but she wasn’t a good one because, as her drama teacher put it, you could always see her acting. Her later roles of presenter and wife of a journalist seem to have been more successful but Gillian still feels like she’s acting. I think this is what prompts her to approach an artist she has interviewed on her programme. Hulbert is famous for paintings nudes. Gillian at first insists that she remains clothed but suggests she poses nude after she’s disappointed by seeing Hulbert’s sketches. She wanted to see something new about herself. I find it interesting that she would look to her exterior to see something about herself and that she would look to someone else to find it. Unfortunately for Gillian, Hulbert can’t find her either. He keeps trying to get her to be present, in the moment, but nothing works. Gillian tries to seduce Hulbert, fails and leaves with the negatives of her nude photos. Gillian’s husband has these negatives developed and accuses Gillian of having an affair. They are going to a friend’s party and spend the evening drinking and avoiding each other. Gillian is supposed to be driving but her husband gets behind the wheel and the accident follows. Gillian feels guilty about her husband’s death. Gillian’s beautiful face is now gone and we leave her planning to visit her parents’ holiday home in the mountains while she decides what to do with her life.
Our attention turns to Hulbert. Six years have passed since Hulbert’s encounter with Gillian. We see that he was already struggling with his art when he was trying to paint Gillian. He has done no more work since. Instead he teaches art at a college and focuses on his son, his wife and maintaining his house. Unfortunately for him, his wife has decided he does not fulfill her and asks him to leave. When an offer to do an exhibition comes through at a mountain resort, Hulbert eventually agrees. Although nervous about producing any work to fill an exhibition, he desperately needs to escape from his current life.
Hulbert and Gillian re-connect at this resort: Gillian, now Jill, was instrumental in bringing him there. After a nervous breakdown caused by the exhibition and his personal situation, Hulbert is cared for by Jill and eventually their relationship becomes sexual. However, Hulbert’s ex-wife seems to find him a lot more interesting now he’s with someone else and starts saying that she’s not in a good place and that she needs him.
The novel ends with Hulbert away visiting his wife and returning as agreed, whilst Jill has decided to leave the mountain and take charge of her life. If Hulbert wants to be part of her new life, that’s fine, but his actions won’t determine hers. Jill is finally going to stop acting and start living.
I liked this book less than To The back of Beyond because the characters, especially Hulbert, felt less real to me. Having said that, I still enjoyed the sparse prose style very much. Plus there seems to be plenty to think about in Peter Stamm’s novels.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 4, 2022
It all starts in a hospital bed. Gillian seemingly had it all. She was beautiful, a successful television journalist, and in a long term marriage, but then an accident changes Gillian's life overnight. Her career in television journalism is up in flames, her face ruined, her husband, dead, and from this, she has to rebuild her life, slowly, day by day and piece by piece.
Peter Stamm's writing is clear throughout, there are no superfluous details, no long, waffly back stories, we are straight into the action. Told through a series of flashbacks we see Gillian’s life pre and post-accident. We see her life modelling for local celebrity artist Hubert, and the argument it causes with her husband Matthias. We see her leaving television, even giving up the possibility of working in editorial to work as the entertainment manager in a small hotel, where no one knows her as the glamourous television star, where there will be no looks of pity, where no one knows the full story of what happened to her on a fateful night.
All Days are Night is a love story, but it is also a novel of many other things. It is about life and death, change and resilience, how to recover from catastrophic life-changing events and the good that can come of them.
We see Gillian and Hubert building a life of sorts together as artist and model, as friends and lovers, and Hubert accepting that maybe his once-promising Art career is over and that there is much to be said for teaching other artists. The relationship that Gillian has with her parents changes as well, as she becomes reliant on them for a while after the accident, but then the bonds between them loosen once more. We see a growth in all of the characters, Hubert’s improving relationship with his young son Lukas, Gillian’s reliance on the close team she has built around herself at the Hotel, and the importance she has to it, and it has to her.
We see Gillian at a music festival with people half her age, knowing that things are once again changing, and accepting that she has to go with those changes if she is to have a life that she can be happy with.
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