A compact, beautifully-drawn picture of a German family under the thumb of a father and his rigid ideas of what a family should be. Written in 1989, it seems to reflect the state of Germany's mood immediately prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Possibly this sounds like a grim prospect, but it's so well-written, without a single unneeded word, and the lines of the family's relationship so perfectly imagined that it doesn't feel hard to read at all.