Mieze Medusa

Melanie may not always have made the best decisions. Otherwise she wouldn’t be where she is now: the second ex-wife of a wealthy globe-trotting man who has just settled down with wife number three and whisked off their daughter Adele to New Zealand. Melanie’s life in Vienna is hardly plain sailing: she gets no alimony money from her ex, so she’s plagued by money troubles, and she desperately misses her daughter. But at least she’s not alone: she works at a feminist hotel project, she’s got close friendships, and Adele is bound to return to Europe at some point. Warm-hearted and encouraging, Mieze Medusa’s novel shows that solidarity and a sense of humour are worth their weight in gold—and that life would be pretty boring if you never made any bad decisions ...

Friends and partners, mothers and daughters: Mieze Medusa’s captivating new novel is all about women and their right to not give a monkey’s about ‘what people say about them’. Laura, a native of Tyrol, lives in Innsbruck and hates skiing, cosy romantic chalets and the magic of the Alps. Forty-year-old Frederike, known as Fred, still hasn’t settled down and is frequently out of work. She lives in Vienna, previously with Marlis – until she falls in love with musician Milla YoloBitch. Marlis wants a baby, Fred wants Milla, Milla wants to rap, Laura wants to draw comics, Laura’s sister Isabella wants a family and a career. And although not all their wishes will come true, in this novel Mieze Medusa makes a passionate case for allowing women to be, become and want anything they please.

Three lovable outsiders search for their place in the world. Agnesa, an 18-year-old Vienna city girl with migrant background who left school without qualifications, computer nerd Eduard, whose midlife crisis has turned him into a stalker in the wilds of the world wide web, and Felicitas, a feminist who’s still fighting the good fight at 69, even though she has followed her true love into the province. Their paths cross and they soon realise that life is better when shared, even if it means that some dearly held falsities have to fall by the wayside. Writer and performer Mieze Medusa has enjoyed years of success on the poetry slam circuit. Now she’s delivered a novel that combines humour and warmth with its very own language to capture the voices of today.