Stefan Meetschen | »Ghosts Like Us«: Beautiful Wounds

Let's be honest: Who hasn't imagined watching a film about their own life? Author Stefan Meetschen has fulfilled this dream and – figuratively speaking – even directed the film himself. In his new novel "Ghosts Like Us," he doesn't rummage through dusty archive boxes of family history, but instead lets a fictional filmmaker bring it to life. Like the author, he also has a German-Polish background and spent his youth in Duisburg. Combined with his own mother's experience of fleeing, all of this makes for excellent material for the cinema!

However, the autobiographical work of protagonist Albert Simon initially faces a bleak start. The German film funding agency declines to support it. In addition, the director soon finds himself in the headlines, causing his team to gradually distance themselves from him.

What initially sounds like a literary exploration of one's own origins, including the role of ancestors in National Socialism, contains much more. It is likely the journalistic gene of the 1969-born publicist that lends this text distinct characteristics of a contemporary novel. The author critically examines the political reality in Poland over the past two decades or delves into the quagmire of a new xenophobia and homophobia.

Meanwhile, the main focus is on fake news. The director, who is constantly recovering, becomes one of its victims when a female employee makes the ultimately false accusation of sexual abuse against him. Meetschen counters this feminism that degrades him to a "monster" with another image of strong femininity, for example, by telling the story of an activist who courageously engages in Ukraine. Simon finds admirable "women who didn't endlessly focus on themselves, gender equality, and their emotional sensitivities, but knew that evil cannot be categorized in gender terms. Both sexes are attacked – from within and from without."

We all experience suffering at some point in our lives; we are all tested, regardless of our circumstances. The main message of this text, written with equal parts heart and contemporary diagnostic expertise, is not to be destroyed by it. It strives to "transform the wounds of our lives into beauty." It is no coincidence, therefore, that the title of the film in the book is "Transmutation." Like his parents, the protagonist undergoes a path of transformation. The culmination of this journey is the possibility of fatherhood, the prospect of a better future.

Meetschen, himself a devout Catholic, sees human action as primarily responsible for this. But not only that. Many encounters in this story—from the angelic nun to the arsonist priest—feel fateful, as does a rather unexpected inheritance of millions. Nevertheless, the story doesn't seem overly contrived, precisely because the author deliberately wants to point to a metaphysical backdrop. The hope is that there could thus be a supernatural power that could resolve all global and personal crises. That one can still find such bright, graceful books in a present ruled by dystopias must be called a true gift. One can therefore confidently trust the spirits of this novel.

Stefan Meetschen: Ghosts Like Us. Ruhland, 236 pp., hardcover, €24.