'Rich moving and wryly funny... a delight' Observer * Graphic Novel of the Month* '
Brilliant witty and endlessly inventive' Joe Dunthorne author of Submarine A road-trip
across Europe and back in time: the debut graphic memoir from the prize-winning author of A
Funeral In Freiburg . When her imperious chain-smoking German Jewish grandmother dies it
falls to Astrid and her father to drive a hire van to the Black Forest and collect the family
heirlooms from Gisela's nicotine-stained apartment. In Freiburg they are faced with several
lifetimes' worth of belongings to sort through - infested Persian rugs mysterious photographs
a toy monkey that started a marriage - and a grasping landlord impatient to renovate. As the
list of demands from uncles sisters and cousins grows longer the rabbit-holes of history and
memory grow deeper. Long-buried secrets and tales of survival are revealed - from Nazi Germany
to colonial Africa - and old feuds are reignited as father and daughter struggle with the
responsibility of preserving the family legacy. More importantly will they be able to fit
everything into a medium wheel-base transit van? Funny bittersweet and beautifully drawn
The Crystal Vase is an odyssey of family arguments identity crises and late discoveries.
