How many New Zealand writers do we know? Meet Margaret Mahy. He writes mostly for teenagers (Andersen Prize winner, 2007), but this novel is more likely for adults. In the introduction, the famous translator Nina Demurova explains why she drew attention to the author. However, one can guess: in places in the text there is such a thick atmosphere of Lewis Carroll... But at the same time, it is also multiplied by Franz Kafka and mixed with psychoanalytic reflections originally from Freud. Killer mixture. The nineteen-year-old hero is trying to understand the details of the tragedy that happened to his sister five years ago. And the reconstruction of memory leads him into some completely unpredictable abysses and corners of consciousness. Here it is not always clear whether we are inside a grandiose dream or in reality: the narrative effectively balances between two spheres. But if everything about the consciousness of the main character is not entirely clear, then the memory of his mysterious and casual friend, old lady Sophie, is affected by a very specific illness - Alzheimer's disease. And this in places turns the text into an endless macabre anecdote, in which laughter is mixed with pity and sadness. A truly bitter cocktail. Published in the journal “Foreign Literature.”