Nothing But the Truth

Recommended by New Books in German

Matthias simply gives women what they want; he’s not a bad person. When he tells his mother that he expects to be admitted to the diplomatic service soon, it’s just a white lie of sorts to save his self-esteem. After all, he can hardly admit to her that he was just fired from his job as a representative for an insurance company – already an unworthy job, in her eyes.

He tells his attractive neighbor Juliane that he’s looking for his cat that ran away (even though it belongs to someone else) – how else could he have made contact and started an affair with her? And he only uses his various profiles on Internet dating sites to make money; his heart isn’t really in it.

When he meets Annemarie Funk, a lonely, fatally ill woman, he doesn’t force himself on her. She’s the one who admits to him that she really would have loved to have had a son. And she’s the one who comes up with the idea that he could move in with her. But his hopes of coming into an inheritance quickly and easily are seriously put to the test. Unexpectedly, Annemarie blossoms in his presence. She seems to miraculously grow younger.

And so the struggle begins: for Annemarie’s brief future, for the tale she has to tell, for what she will leave behind, and for what really matters to someone who doesn’t have much longer to live – the truth or a beautiful illusion.