Mystery in the Eifel

Tervuren author makes an international splash with debut novel

In the age of Postmoderism, it is hard to find some decent, dare I say, old-fashioned, storytelling where the tale is as exciting and as intricately worked out as its captivating characters. No technology, no shock effects – just real people in their everyday small town surroundings living their lives, until one day tragedy strikes: Katharina Linden vanishes.

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is set in the picturesque town of Bad Münstereifel, located in the Eifel mountain region of Germany, just west of the Belgian border, where our tenacious 10-year-old heroine Pia tries to find out what happened to her friend. She is aided by Stefan, another outcast, and guided by the stories of the old and wise Herr Schiller.

This novel is timeless: a tale that combines real folklore and mystery in an almost claustrophobic yet fantastical setting filled with colorful people. The fairy tale atmosphere is in fact reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm.

Helen Grant, the British author of this Gothic goodie, has been writing non-fiction articles and ghost stories for several years, but Vanishing is her first novel. She's off to a cracking start.

Grant, who presents her book later this month at Waterstone’s in Brussels, moved to Bad Münstereifel with her family from England in 2001 for her husband’s job. She was not only captivated by the town and its mediaeval surroundings but also inspired by its countless myths and legends. “All the stories in the book are genuine local folk legends collected by a Catholic priest,” she explains. “He went and talked to old people in the area and wrote down the legends before they could be lost.”

Grant also shows a different side of Germany, one that isn't plagued by a Second World War legacy and doesn't include “retired Nazi war criminals”.

Vanishing is ostensibly a novel for young adults but easily captures adult imaginations. The Guardian wrote: “The excellent writing – and the eschewing of anything remotely winsome or mawkish – make this an eerily subtle literary page-turner.”

In fact, she didn’t specifically aim it at an age group; it was her publisher, Penguin, that felt that it would be right for a young adult market and function as a crossover novel. But Grant did choose the ages of her characters carefully. “The heroine had to be quite young,” she explains. “If she were an adult or even a teenager, she wouldn't believe as much of the stories of the town. She interprets everything in a different way than an adult would.”

Published in the UK in March, Vanishing is also being translated and released in Germany, Spain, Italy and Romania. (Let’s hope Dutch and French are next.)

Due to the combination of mystery, a young and inquisitive protagonist and the ability to appeal to readers from 12 on up, Vanishing has been compared to British writer Mark Haddon’s run-away hit The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: “It's a compliment because it was a best-selling book,” says Grant. “But in terms of the style, there’s not much point of contact. I guess the thing is that whenever there are reviews, people always want to categorize what they've read.”

After some extensive travelling, Grant has settled down in Tervuren with her family, where she is working on her second novel. Also inspired by a German legend, it's about an English girl in Germany and deals with an outsider's perspective compared to Vanishing's inner turmoil.

Flanders Today June 17 2009