The Pass-On Girl

Power and powerlessness: how close can they be to each other and how can they even merge into each other unnoticed? A beautifully composed book by a natural storyteller.
She lay blindfolded and tied to a kind of delivery table. All she heard was the filling of glasses and the voices of Bonami and Otelo. Every now and then one of them would pour a dash of sherry in and especially next to her mouth, so that she could feel the drink flowing between her breasts and into her navel and becoming sticky. A few things have happened since she was twenty, said Bonami. Yes, said Otelo, we have turned sixty-four. Their articulation was already failing. (fragment)
The pass-on girl from Paul Koeck's new novel is Marianne, born of a white father and a black mother. She discovers how in her life she is not only tossed back and forth between black and white, but also between power and powerlessness, the two poles in her life.