No Exit (novel)

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No Exit is the debut novel by US author Daniel Gray Marshall . It was released in 2001 under the original title Still Can't See Nothin 'Comin' . It was published in French by Laucence Viallet in 2002 under the title Quand le jour viendra . It was published by Reclam in 2003 in a German translation by Friederike Levin. In 2006 it was published as a Bertelsmann paperback.

content

The story is about Jimmy meeting up with Leslie again after being at the seaside and now coming back. Then he tells how it came about. Jimmy is introduced to her friend Leslie by his sister Mandy. Jimmy and Leslie immediately fall in love. Jimmy meets up with his friends Philly and Jeremy. A few normal days follow. Then Jimmy, Mandy, Jeremy, Philly and Leslie meet at an old bridge where they bathe and smoke until a security guard comes and they run away. Then Leslie says goodbye and the rest go to Jimmy. Mandy and Jeremy retreat to Mandy's room as a couple, and Jimmy and Philly get drunk in Jimmy's room. Then Jimmy's brother Billy comes in and Jimmy tries to push him out again, pushing Billy against the wall. That spoils the good relationship between the three siblings. The siblings hardly talk to each other anymore, and when Philly and Jeremy force Jimmy and Mandy to meet, it degenerates and Mandy throws himself in front of a train.

Jimmy then stays in his room for six weeks, ignoring his friends who initially visit him every day. Leslie, on the other hand, only comes once when Jimmy throws a beer bottle at her. He always has a knife with him so that if he changes his mind, he can kill himself. After a while, Jimmy starts "hanging out" with Philly and Jeremy again. Jeremy once brings Leslie with him, who then breaks up with Jimmy because he drinks and smokes a lot. A few days later, it's Billy's birthday and Jimmy decides, after some vodka, to steal a present for Billy with Philly and Jeremy in a department store. He and Philly are caught and taken to the police station, where he meets the police officer Sarah. Jimmy is fired on the grounds that he hasn’t done anything behind the coffers without paying. Billy is pissed off at Jimmy because he has no present for him. The next chapter is about Philly organizing three girls with whom the three friends sleep, and that Jimmy gets into a dangerous drug deal that ends with Jimmy, Philly and Jeremy no longer being able to go to school.

After the friends stayed in an old movie theater for about two months, waiting for Jimmy to agree to the plan to go to the sea that had already been decided and to go with them. He decides to go after he goes home one more time. Once there, there is nobody there, he goes into Mandy's room and reads her diary. He learns that the reason for her suicide is that her father raped her almost every night. He'll stay in her room until the rest of the family comes home. When she eats, he goes quietly to the kitchen door and watches her. Then he starts reading the last page of the diary aloud. He then beats his mother and beats his father. He wants to cause him all the pain that he has caused him and his sister. He flees to Leslie, who bathes him and then tries to seduce him. However, he does not respond to it because he is far too tired. The next morning he wakes up with severe withdrawal symptoms. He was sober for twelve hours.

In order to get the money that Jimmy, Philly and Jeremy need to be able to go to the sea, they decide to raid the Sunshine store on the condition that Carlos, aka Charlie, does not serve. Unfortunately, Charlie changes his T-shirt for the first time that day, which is why the three robbers don't recognize him. Philly, who was on guard outside, suddenly storms into the shop and shoots Charlie in the chest. Then Jeremy changes guns with Philly and flees. Just before the police arrive, Jimmy also escapes and watches as Philly is shot because of a misunderstanding with the police. Jim screams and runs away. Although he is hit by a graze, he runs to the place where Mandy died. There he is arrested and taken to a hospital under guard. From there, with passive help from Sarah, he can escape and hitchhikes to the sea. There he sits on the beach for two days in a row before returning to Leslie. (You're back to the starting point.) That's the story Jimmy Leslie told. After they have slept together, he turns himself in to the police. But since Jeremy, who turns in shortly after him, takes all the blame, Jimmy is apparently acquitted. Jeremy is given ten years' adult prison sentence.

review

Mark Athitakis wrote in the New York Times in 2001 : “Set in Madison, Wis., And modeled after the 23-year-old author's own experiences, Still Can't See Nothin 'Comin' is familiar coming-of-age stuff, filled with stock characters: the abusive father, the loving sibling, the girlfriend with a heart of gold and the peers who pull Jim further downward. [...] Even at his most pathetic and brutal, he's honest and sympathetic; Marshall's sketches of characters and places, written in simple, slacker-cool prose, crystallize Jim's own emptiness. "

The Berliner Zeitung reviewed the novel in 2003 after it was published by Reclam. In his novel, the author confidently, almost conventionally, tells the story of a young person from a difficult family. “The reader is immediately hit [...] by descriptions of the anger and helplessness of the youthful heroes, to whom their lives appear to be a dead end with no way out. In order to achieve this effect, an author does not necessarily have to have lived such an existence himself. He just needs to know how to pass their emotional output on as a punch into the stomach of readers. Marshall does it in a way that suggests that maybe not the Pulitzer Prize, but at least Hollywood will be knocking on his door soon. "

The editors of booksXL.de recommended No Exit as reading material for German lessons: “Literarily demanding amalgamation of the externally attractive world of youth, music, fun and rebellion. Enlightening and convincing the introduction to doom and death. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Still Can't See Nothin 'Comin' . In: The New York Times online June 17, 2001
  2. ^ Reproduction of the review on Die Berliner Literaturkritik from December 11, 2003
  3. ↑ Brigitte Helbling: Blow in the pit of the stomach In: Berliner Zeitung of December 11, 2003
  4. ↑ Reading tips for German lessons ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated June 14, 2006 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deutsch-lektuere.de