Black Belt

A painfully funny tragicomic novel about the fear of death.

A father of superior nature had a black belt in self-confidence, while his son feels like he can’t manage anything.

The father’s death triggers a terrible fear and anxiety in the author. Time stops. He lies paralyzed in a garden swing, thinking about drowning himself. He looks at his home as if it were an estate to be cleared after his death, and feels useless – as a man, husband, and father. 

Gradually he realizes that he has to let himself be influenced by his father’s deeds, not his death. ‘You have to go in there, that is life,’ he hears his father’s last words in his ears. In the end, it’s down to such things as cake, the library, and volleyball – these are the reasons to live, and the sources of hope.