A village in the late 80s: Two daughters grow up without fathers; the mother of the two is overburdened by life. She tops up the social money with the sale of second-hand clothes. Everything could be better and lighter …
With lies and clever manipulation, the mother tries to shield her children from the outside world and at the same time binds them to herself. Hand in hand, she walks through the village with her two little princesses, although they are actually »disrespectful little monsters« who sometimes fight their way through everyday life in a beastly manner.
The girls’ creepy, fairy-tale isolation begins to crack as the older of the two discovers the power of curiosity and begins to suspect that the world has more in store for her than just this small, painstakingly patched-together life.
Sold to Turkish.
Recommended in new books in german: »With its striking fragmented structure and sparing yet beautiful use of language, Meeresbrise is a haunting novel about undisclosed trauma, social marginalisation, coming of age in a rural community and how we establish a life for ourselves. Schutti’s sensitive way with words and keen eye for detail make this high-quality literary fiction with a captivatingly poetic touch.«
»The book invites readers to think about class, norms, mother-daughter relationships and many other serious social issues.« (Anna von Rat, Poco.lit)
»Carolina Schutti creates an incredible and sometimes uncanny effect. Literature that touches because it puts its fingers on the fragility of life.« (Bernd Melichar, Kleine Zeitung)
»With the current novel Ocean Breeze the author succeeds in a masterpiece on a narrow space.« (Sylvia Treidl, Buchkultur)
»A slim book, but one that holds a whole world within it, a world of lies and fairy tales with which a somehow strange mother has spun her two daughters.« (Martin Sailer, ORF Tirol)
»Short chapters and sentences that resonate. A great recommendation.« (Hans Rouven, ekz)
»Schutti links fundamental themes such as family violence, resulting traumas and the construction of an imaginary protective world with the eventual attempt to break out of this life. A timely and important novel.« (Hubert Berger, Kronen Zeitung)
»Carolina Schutti’s Ocean Breeze can be read in many ways: as a socially critical novel depicting the marginalization of a single mother and her two daughters in a village, as well as their exposure to poverty; as a coming-of-age novel depicting a girl’s liberation from a narrow family world; as a literary artwork that brilliantly masters the narration. The grandiose thing about this novel is that it is everything at once.« (Anna Rottensteiner, Literature in Tyrol)