On the morning of his fiftieth birthday, a man retreats to the one place where he hopes to be left undisturbed: the toilet. While his wife prepares a celebration he never wanted, he embarks on a journey through his own past, revisiting childhood, friendships, love, marriage, fatherhood, literature, and loss.

Memories surface, intertwine, and lead him down unexpected paths. The past proves anything but past, as encounters, conversations, and long-forgotten emotions come vividly back to life. With irony, tenderness, and a generous dose of dark humor, the narrator reflects on the people who have shaped him, the choices he has made, and the curious turns his life has taken. And beneath it all, one uncomfortable question persists: What, exactly, is there to celebrate?

FIFTY is a reflective, witty, and often irreverent novel about growing older without necessarily growing wiser, the persistence of memory, the complexities and contradictions of human relationships, and the peculiar challenge of taking stock of a life that refuses to add up neatly.

Available to order from Amazon.com as a hardcover, paperback, or Kindle e-book. Also available from Amazon in other countries, including Germany, France, Spain, and Catalonia. The choice is yours!

Fifty. A round number, I keep saying to myself. It is definitely absurd; and the word—fifty—always remains vague. Even on paper: a five and a naught. Though I always declare: I am a Naught. Simply the thought that today is the day sends a shiver down my spine … nobody has asked whether I am ready, whether I am ready for this number, which is, at bottom, merely a figure. It paralyzes my senses, and that reduces me to a figure of fun. And who cares? (Nobody. Except … me.) This morning I wanted neither to get out of bed nor to eat anything but felt some satisfaction that Angritt had gotten up before me and taken care of everything necessary (whatever she considers necessary). All my limbs felt so heavy, as though I had to fend off some invisible resistance. Just don’t get up, just don’t go out, just don’t start anything reasonable. I was fighting a bodily impulse, although I knew I was wrestling with a mental impediment. It is supposed to start shortly after noon. (Whew, that’s very soon!) And yet months ago I had asked that there be no celebration—I haven’t the slightest idea what I am supposed to celebrate, or what my family and friends might have to celebrate with me. My wish, more precisely: my demand was ignored, and Angritt went all out, inviting everyone, planning the day’s schedule down to the last detail, reserving the dining room at our favorite inn, in short, organizing everything and then staging it in her own perfect way. Goes without saying, really. When she takes something on, she doesn’t do it by halves. Originally, it was supposed to be a surprise, but how could anyone be surprised by their own birthday? Maybe those who wouldn’t know what to do with a clock, who enjoy their days in utter innocence, scarcely looking back or to either side, and follow their path so self-centeredly that cuts in the continuity of life, such as round-number anniversaries, pass them by without attracting attention or even leaving a scratch. The cut; yes, I hear about it so often, but perhaps that is only because it really does seem to me as though something were being cut through: severed from everything that has been and has mattered until now. Journalists, columnists, advisors; society as a whole refers to the new section of life. Section of life … a hideous expression for a phase. You have to resign yourself to being nothing more than a life-section partner. It’s degrading, and who can be surprised if, in the back of someone’s mind, the clock is not merely ticking but pounding so loudly that sooner or later panic takes hold. Quite a long preparation for this day. Yes. Preparation for the others, though, and not for me. (Isn’t it? That’s how it is …) Angritt said I shouldn’t have been so stubborn from the outset, shouldn’t have resisted, though she failed to consider that my reluctance is by no means a game or a show, as she accuses me of putting on, but more of a reflex, a response to something I admittedly do not yet know, but would gladly evade, because its brittleness makes me shudder. (Uhhh …) The big number, fifty, has something absolute and, at the same time, crushing about it. (A closure of what I wanted to keep open; it is closed and threadbare.) Fifty demands an appraisal of what has been and what therefore—today—is coming to an end. (Navel-gazing?) No golden jubilee, because jubilee comes from jubilation, from rejoicing, and I really see no reason for that. Or, since my innards have been resisting everything I’ve been trying to approach with calm deliberation ever since I woke up, should I light a candle (preferably a cemetery candle), hoist myself onto the kitchen table and recite a few verses by Morgenstern? Loudly, preferably, shouting them, so that the neighbors also get something out of it and have their opinion confirmed that my head is full of nothing but foolishness? (Navel-gazing. Definitely.) When Angritt first put forward her idea, I rejected it and made it clear to her, with brusque vehemence, that I had nothing to celebrate and therefore did not want to be pinned down to any festivities. What was the matter with me, she asked, and snapped that I certainly wasn’t the only person getting older. (Well, obviously; I’d upset her.) At some point she mentioned the midlife crisis—as though she had just read about it in a magazine at the hairdresser’s (not like her at all, really)—and how men then went completely nuts. … All nonsense. Or am I supposed to buy myself a bright red blazer now, as my father did when he turned fifty, just to show everyone: I am here, and I still want something out of life!? He toyed with buying a motorcycle, booked a vacation in the Far East and took his by then long-standing partner to the registry office … but his whole way of life, the stress of work, enormous quantities of cigarettes and the mediocre food thrown together without care, more makeshift basic sustenance than pleasure (when we, my sisters and I, were invited over once, we were astonished at the convenience foods that appeared on the table, and laughed at the full glass of salad dressing he had mixed as he saw fit, though without any useful intuition), all of that put an end to his intention of giving life a fresh meaning: at the age of fifty-six he was dead. Colon cancer. (I’m feeling sick again, sick enough to puke—is there a further degree?) … The last time I saw the red jacket was when his widow (his second wife), to whom I had never been close, packed the clothes he had left behind and his reading glasses into a large cardboard box. One single box, and in it the remnants of an entire life, since the few books he owned were scarcely worth mentioning. (Breathe.) He had shown us the glasses on an outing together, pulled them out of his breast pocket with obvious exuberance and explained that from now on he needed them if he was to go on reading newspaper articles, letters and business documents. It seemed bizarre, because we had never seen him wearing spectacles before. He knew how bizarre it was, and I am sure he enjoyed that moment as much as our astonishment. (We were having a bite to eat at some mountain inn.) I remember that day well; my father was just over forty, about the age, then, at which reading began to be a strain for me too, and I requested an appointment with my ophthalmologist. When I then put my own reading glasses on the table at home, more sheepish than relieved, Angritt smiled and reminded me of the outing with my father, which I had told her about several times. Midlife crisis. Does a pair of glasses trigger it?

(…)

Reviews

The novel by Viennese author Klaus Ebner, divided into fifty chapters to match its title, might more aptly have been called *FIFTY PLUS*, since it offers a profound examination of the aging process, which nowadays is barely noticeable for most people at the almost youthful age of fifty. (…)

The still-unnamed first-person narrator sees himself as a loser, a nobody. After a highly successful career as a self-employed marketing manager, he was forced to become an employee of an international corporation because of new government regulations concerning business licenses and mandatory insurance that he was unable to comply with. There, the only thing he can still put to use from his experience as a freelancer is his passionate love of French. Unfortunately, he has to suppress his creativity and follow the mind-numbing instructions of a jealous superior, without receiving any pay raises in return. Quite the contrary. The only bright spot at the corporation is Farona, a colleague who understands him all too well but, out of sympathy for Angritt, does not want to jeopardize his second marriage.

He had met Masha, his first wife, as a young man through competitive sports. Despite their children together and his initial attempts at tolerance, he eventually divorced her after enduring years of her infidelity. In the end, he had become little more than the caretaker of the house and children, while Masha preferred another man for "sex and going out," a man she married after divorcing the narrator. Along with Masha, he also abandoned his interest in sports and no longer even goes hiking in the mountains near his home. (…)

On this fiftieth birthday in particular, he feels condemned to inactivity, suffering from a milestone-birthday depression and constipation, and hides away in the bathroom for hours before examining himself in the mirror. Meanwhile, he indulges in reminiscences, through which readers become acquainted with his professional life, his families, and his friends. The protagonist's entire stream of thought unfolds during the few hours preceding his birthday party, whose outcome readers would also be eager to discover.

This single morning, so brief in actual time compared with the expansive stream of consciousness, recalls the narrator's favorite novels, James Joyce's *Finnegans Wake* and *Ulysses*, in which more than a thousand pages describe everyday life in Dublin, the capital of Ireland, from June 16 to 17, 1904, while at the same time encompassing the entire world. In much the same way, Klaus Ebner portrays the literary, technological, and medical worlds surrounding his protagonist and the process of growing older. (…)

Among Austrian writers, Klaus Ebner's fondness for Catalan seems unique. An independent language with a tradition of medieval manuscripts, Catalan is spoken in neighboring regions of France and Spain. As his biography reveals, the author himself has participated very successfully in poetry competitions in Catalonia, and he transfers these experiences and his knowledge to his character Witte, a translator of Catalan literature. The narrator, too, enjoyed a wonderful time with the Catalan woman Lluana in his youth, and, together with Angritt, brings those memories back to life. Along the way, readers are introduced, among other things, to the Catalan wine pitcher known as a Perró, presented as a birthday gift. Its stream of wine must be directed into the mouth, preferably without spilling any. Anyone who follows the author's instructions should have no trouble managing it!

Wolfgang Kauer
November 24, 2025. Published online in Dorfzeitung KULTUR Online,
Salzburg. ISSN: 2960–5954
Read the full review in German

One morning, the narrator wakes up like the beetle in Franz Kafka’s *The Metamorphosis* and discovers that his body has fifty growth rings. Birthday celebrations are supposed to begin today, but the protagonist is paralyzed by his own life and lies motionless while his brain works its way through fifty years.

Klaus Ebner takes a macabre approach to portraying half a century of "a life of one's own" as a historical panorama of society, reflected in the mind of a single individual, in a strikingly original way. (…)

Although the birthday reflections begin in bed, they soon "take place" mainly on the toilet, where the birthday boy is forced to seek refuge because of his digestive troubles. Behind this lies the notion that the brain and the gut communicate with each other, and that reflection must therefore involve both hemispheres if it is to produce a balanced recollection.

Moreover, the toilet has long since reclaimed its role as an ideal communication hub, as it was in earlier cultures. After all, the cell phone, reading material to aid digestion, and the newspaper doubling as toilet paper all converge in the hands of someone secluded in the bathroom.

The train of thought proceeds with unrestrained peristalsis. Often, associations nestle against one another in seemingly illogical ways, much like the years themselves, which usually attach themselves to one another in no particular order before occasionally lighting up as a round number or an anniversary. (…)

As in many "autobiographies," three principal strands suggest themselves: family, education, and work, although, naturally, all three are entirely invented. In Klaus Ebner's case, "autobiography" might be translated as "an ingeniously constructed description."

The facts presented nevertheless sound convincing and fulfill the purpose of every account of a life: the protagonist must come up with a story that he himself can believe, thereby making his own fate bearable. (…)

A few people who have played decisive roles in his life then enter the stream of memories, almost as though they were guests at the birthday celebration. There is the race car driver, who constantly moves between life and death, and his friend Witte, a specialist in Catalan who is at home in several languages but, as a writer, must rely on small publishing houses. Both represent radical ways of life. (…)

With irreverence and audacity, Klaus Ebner manages to serve up an elaborate intellectual edifice straight from the gut, while keeping the story believable. As a narrative approach, *FIFTY* proves ideally suited to blending the spirit of each era with the individual character of lived experience.

Helmuth Schönauer
June 2, 2024. Published online in German in Lesen in Tirol
Link to the full review on Lesen in Tirol
Podium No. 213/214 (September 2024), p. 133
Buch in Pension. Tagebuch eines pensionierten Bibliothekars 6, (Vienna;: Sisyphus Verlag, 2026), pp. 114-116

Where to buy

Available to order from Amazon.com as a hardcover, paperback, or Kindle e-book. Also available from Amazon in other countries, including Germany, France, Spain, and Catalonia. The choice is yours!

Cover design

Cover design and photography by Klaus Ebner.