"I got lost in this slice of life novel set in 1960s Vienna. It’s a relatively short book at around 200 pages but it’s not one you’ll want to rush through, and its unhurried pace only adds to its immersive quality.

Simon Robert had a difficult childhood and adolescence, and lives with a war widow in a small apartment in central Vienna. Having worked for years at the Karmelitenmarkt, Simon has saved up enough money to take on the lease for a cafe in a working class Viennese neighbourhood.

The book follows Simon’s life and the life of the cafe (with no name), as it draws in characters from the locale with its relaxed and welcoming ambience and ordinary fare. Don’t expect a huge amount of plot but do stay for the well drawn characters, the precise writing and the beautifully authentic sense of time and place - a Vienna 20 years after the war when possibility abounds.

There are perhaps many to whom this will not appeal, but I found it thoroughly lovely, gentle and bittersweet, and with Seethaler having been previously longlisted for his novel A Whole Life, we might see this on the International Booker longlist. For fans of Elizabeth Strout or Marzahn Mon Amour. 4/5⭐️

Wonderful translation by Katy Derbyshire, the original was a bestseller in Austria. Many thanks to Canongate books for the arc via @netgalley in exchange for an honest review. "

"dialogue/prose/characterisation so cringe it made me want to claw my eyes out "