Review by

Eurotrash

Filthy lucre and edelweiss

Originally published in German in 2021, it’s taken years for Eurotrash by Christian Kracht to make it into English translation, and mere weeks to bag a place on The Times Best Books of 2024 list. Witty, reflective, and frequently disturbing, Kracht’s semi-autobiographical tragicomedy stars the man himself, as a middle-aged Swiss writer embarking on a road trip around Switzerland with his elderly mother. Recently released from a mental institution, and potentially on her last legs, it could be both their final holiday together, and Kracht’s only chance to get her to confront the implications of their family’s Nazi past.

The story opens in Zurich, a city of affectation and opulence. Here Kracht’s mother has just marked her 80th birthday in a haze of vodka and phenobarbitol. Home alone ‘like Miss Havisham, caught in a spider web of resentment, fury and loneliness,’ her impending death-spiral is halted by Kracht’s proposal of a spontaneous holiday.

For him, it’s prompted by guilt, fear, and a desire to finally make sense of and come to terms with his family history. His mother adds an extra dimension to this, acquiescing to the road trip but announcing that she wishes to redistribute her wealth along the way. Having invested heavily in German weapons technology, her conscience now dictates that she should wash her hands of it.

As they set off in a cab, laden with his mother’s suitcases, pharmaceuticals and favourite tipple, she instructs the driver to stop at her bank, where she withdraws six-hundred-thousand francs in cash, stuffed into a plastic bag. ‘You think I’m a stupid, heartless old woman,’ she tells her son, ‘Just wait. We’re going to give this money away.’

Ironic, amusing, and occasionally bleak, Kracht’s story is a search for truth and catharsis. He recounts a life of immense privilege, the family chalet in Gstaad, a villa in Cap Ferrat, his mother’s Ferragamo shoes and Hermès handbags. All the trappings of the nouveau riche in a family that his late father was desperate to pass off as Old Money. By revisiting old family and personal haunts, Kracht hopes that he and his mother can unpick a familial trauma that stretches back to her own father, a Nazi and member of the SS. Perhaps their habitual ‘pedestrian, ghastly’ silence can be ended and the question of the family’s ‘filthy Swiss francs’ addressed.

All this angst, whilst engaged on a road trip that swiftly tips into absurdity. Intrinsically Swiss situations involving cable cars and edelweiss unfold alongside encounters with, among others, alarming vegetarians and scheming crooks. It also transpires that it’s harder than you may think to merrily dispose of massive wads of cash.

However, despite the diversions, Kracht never lets us lose sight of the heart of the matter.

‘It was always, then, the German…It had always been the girl’s dark brown hair pinned on the left by that barrette, a curtain before her face brushed aside gently by her hand; it had always been the candle extinguished in Amsterdam.’

An astute, contemplative and often droll novel, with a sterling translation by Daniel Bowles.

Eurotrash by Christian Kracht is published by Serpent’s Tail, 192 pages.