“It would have been impossible for me to put dialogues into his mouth,” emphasizes Klaus H. Sindern. And so he wrote a book in which he let a lot of himself flow.
“After all, everyone has to die” is the name of the work that was published four years after his first novel “An feinsponnenen Fäden – Familienverstrickungen”, which was highly praised in this newspaper. “It took me seven years to write the first novel and actually didn’t want to write a second one,” says Klaus H. Sindern looking back. The belief that one idea is enough and that the book will then write itself as if by itself turned out to be naive at the time, he reports. This time he knew where he was going and only needed six months to write. The 77-year-old retired German teacher and teacher trainer speaks of a “Corona novel” – the lockdown promoted concentration on the book.
But the 400 pages are not about the pandemic. The story takes place in the 1980s in Berlin and Recklinghausen, where Klaus H. Sindern was born and grew up right next to the Steintor. Anyone who expects a crime thriller given the title “Everyone has to die” is wrong. Even if no commissioner enters a crime scene, the story is still dramatic.
The twin brothers Frank and Rolf Neske fall in love with the same woman, Regine decides on the reserved Frank and becomes pregnant. Frank is killed in an accident, his brother had wished him death beforehand. It will not be the last death, the events are far from over, relatives like Regine’s daughter Silke fall into the long shadow cast by the past. So did Paul Richter from Recklinghausen, who was initially uninvolved, and his mother advised him to follow in his father’s footsteps as an undertaker, because “after all, everyone has to die”.
Paul Richter, on the other hand, moved to Berlin, where he promptly met Silke Hessler. More is not revealed, only the “key sentence of the novel” (Klaus H. Sindern). When Rolf stands at his brother’s grave, he sighs: “Forgive me Frank, I didn’t mean that!” He has no idea that someone is listening to him and is watching him.
Paul Richter appears for the first time on page 167, he is the author’s alter ego. Just like Paul Richter, Klaus H. Sindern grew up in Recklinghausen, attended boarding school and moved to Berlin to avoid the Bundeswehr. Just like Richter, Sindern experienced the pitfalls of growing up, like his fictional character, he enjoyed a beat concert and suffered from Hans Pfitzner’s opera “Palestrina”, which took some getting used to. “Paul breaks his arm in a way that exactly happened to me,” the author mentions another parallel. He also knows his way around brothers; he dedicated the book to his ten siblings, seven of whom have unfortunately died in the meantime.
Chance plays an important role in “Everyone Must Die”, but when it comes to selling the book, Klaus H. Sindern, who is also known by culture lovers as the face of the Amalthea Theater, trusts himself alone. He sells the novel, which costs 20 euros, in direct sales, and takes orders at the e-mail address [email protected]. He also wants to display copies in the bookshops Voss (Hövelhof) and Literafee (Schloss Neuhaus) in the hope that they will soon be able to open normally again.
Klaus H. Sindern will probably also do a reading in Recklinghausen, the references to his hometown not only result from the plot of the novel. Sindern’s father Josef once provided the painter Rudolf Wolter with colors, who in turn rewarded him in the form of pictures with motifs from Recklinghausen. And so there is not just a picture of the stone gate in Sindern’s house in Hövelhof. It is quite possible that it will be part of a retrospective planned in Recklinghausen with Wolter pictures. Klaus H. Sindern’s homeland doesn’t let go of his homeland any more than Frank Neske’s death leaves the characters in his well-read and skilfully structured novel.
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