The End Of The World Ought To Be The Start Of The Story In 'Oval'
Elvia Wilk's new novel follows a group of aimless young people in Berlin, working, going out, coming home — until something happens that brings about a cataclysm. But is the aimlessness intentional?
The story begins with the death of one woman. It ends with the death of a city.
Elvia Wilk's novel Oval is like an ever-expanding sphere. A slow-growing, smoldering fire that doesn't really dig in and become something until the very, very, very end.
The first death is banal (sadly) and common (sadly). Louis is a "consultant" living in Berlin with his girlfriend Anja, and at the beginning of things we learn that his mother has died — the funeral, the paperwork, the awful bureaucracy of modern death having drawn him home to the United States. He returns quickly
