The Appointment

June 15, 2020
A stream-of-consciousness monologue by a woman in a doctor's office. At the center of this startling debut novel is a woman in the midst of a medical appointment. The precise nature of that appointment only gradually becomes clear, as hints accumulate, but the woman's name is never shared. The novel itself takes the form of a stream-of-consciousness monologue the woman delivers, without pause, to a certain Dr. Seligman, who goes on examining her without ever stopping to speak. The content of her monologue varies widely, from a kind of metaphysical riffing to a sexual fixation on Adolf Hitler she may or may not have invented during previous sessions with a therapist she'd been compelled to visit. "The only real conversations you can have in life," she says at one point, "are those with strangers at night. During the day, there is no anonymity, and if you just start talking to people, you are a freak." There's also a former lover she refers to as K. and a family inheritance she's just received. But her focus seems to be on gender, gender roles, and embodiment--its cruelties and caprices. Volckmer's prose has a fluid lyricism even--or especially--when it is laced with profanity, which it often is. But her insights often fail to move beyond shock value to achieve real depth. Volckmer's narrator, it turns out, grew up in Germany, though she now lives in London; Dr. Seligman is Jewish. The narrator turns repeatedly to the subject of the Second World War. She even ends the book by revealing where that family inheritance came from. Unfortunately, that ending, like much else in this intriguing novel, ultimately feels unearned. Aiming for shock value over profundity, Volckmer glides past the subjects that might have made her novel truly unsettling.

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Starred review from July 27, 2020
Volckmer’s coruscating debut takes the form of a Bernhardian monologue made during a medical exam. While the title is a nod to the novel’s setting, its alternate title (The Story of a Jewish Cock) engenders the salacious tone. Sarah, the German-born, London-based 30-something narrator, opens the book by relating her sexual fantasies of Hitler to Dr. Seligman, her Jewish gynecologist. As Seligman examines Sarah, she provides a chaise lounges-like Freudian confessional, a setup that allows Volckmer to display her mastery of dark comedy. Sarah ponders epithets for the Fuhrer’s penis and explains how loving “a Jew... a proper one, with curls and a skullcap” is the only way for a German to overcome Holocaust guilt. The narrative is deepened when Sarah explores how the shame of being German has impacted her psyche: she describes a romance begun in a public toilet and her disdain for her familial and national roots, even airing out her frustration of being stereotyped as a German well versed in “Max fucking Sebald.” The book ends in a passage of contemplative beauty that grounds Sarah as a human trying to solve her own complications. The narration successfully walks a tightrope of incendiary subject matter via German-Jewish humor and literary touchstones; Volckmer’s inversion of Portnoy’s Complaint is a revelation.