The Wall

By Marlen Haushofer, Shaun Whiteside (translator),

Book cover of The Wall

Book description

While vacationing in a hunting lodge in the Austrian mountains, a middle-aged woman awakens one morning to find herself separated from the rest of the world by an invisible wall. With a cat, a dog, and a cow as her sole companions, she learns how to survive and cope with…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Wall as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I absolutely love twisted scenarios, and Maria Haushofer’s book presents us with a simple yet terrifying premise: What if you were trapped, alone, for the rest of your natural life?

While staying at her family’s countryside lodge, the protagonist wakes up to find an invisible barrier separating her small patch of land from the rest of the world. Thanks to some exploration and a pair of binoculars, she can see that everyone beyond the wall is dead, apparently turned to stone.

The entire story follows the sole character’s isolation and struggle to survive. Well, I should say sole human character…

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