November 1989: the Wall falls, and five young people race to Berlin in a rickety Audi to witness history firsthand. Lanfermann’s posthumously published novel captures the spirit of a generation – with all its euphoria, hopes, and the first cracks in the dream of friendship and unity.
»Mad Times hits you unexpectedly. Because a friendship like this is heartbreaking. Because Mechthild Lanfermann writes compellingly about a time that set the course for our present.« Annegret Liepold
»That’s mad!« says a guy with a Walkman, while perm hairstyles, denim jackets and babies being passed over the Wall flicker across the screen. In Eliza’s dormitory in the North Frisian town, excitement runs high. Suddenly a horn blares, and Jo, his silent friend Thies, and Ava with a red scarf in her short blonde hair wave Eliza into the Audi. »Where are we going?« someone asks, grinning crookedly. »Well, to Berlin!«
In the fever of a time when the old is torn down and something new begins, Eliza, Ava, Maria, Jo, and Thies come together – and for the first time Eliza feels part of something. But just as the utopia of unity quickly shows its first cracks, Ava, the dazzling center of their friendship, sinks deeper into crisis. Jo becomes overwhelmed, Thies is consumed by his secret love for Eliza, and Eliza herself increasingly questions what is considered »normal.«
With sharp insight and warm humor, Mechthild Lanfermann tells the story of a time when everything still seemed possible: of a newly reunited country, a budding friendship, and the realization that what ultimately defines us is also the most fleeting. A moving novel about friendship, loss, and the belief in new beginnings.
Mechthild Lanfermann, born in 1969 in Lower Saxony, died in 2024 in Berlin, studied theatre studies, German literature and philosophy in Bochum, Paris and Cologne, later journalism in Hanover. She worked as a radio journalist at various public broadcasting institutions and spent over ten years on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. She published five novels, including the crime series featuring the fictional Berlin journalist Emma Vonderwehr, for which she was nominated for the Glauser Prize.