Wunderland

Caitríona Lally’s sophomore novel centres around an outsider protagonist, Roy, an Irishman exiled from Ireland to Hamburg for unknown reasons.  In his new, simple life he works as a cleaner at the Wunderland miniature exhibition where he is more comfortable meddling in the tiny scenes than he is in interacting with his co-workers and visitors to the museum.  To Roy’s almost total indifference, his sister Gert visits for a few days, the first of their family to do so since his exile, and she patiently and then not-so-patiently tries to talk to him and discover what really prompted his move away. But Gert is fighting her own demons, having checked out of her exhausting family life where she is losing herself in the face of her husband’s deepening depression.  Latent forces within brother and sister explode to force them to do something – anything – to change their stagnant and bewildering lives.