All of You Every Single One

November 8, 2021
Hitchman (Petite Mort) tells a preoccupying if underwhelming story of queer love in Vienna over the course of both world wars. Julia Lindqvist, 26, is unhappily married in 1910 when, during a vacation in France, she meets a young tailor, Eve Perret, who passes as a man. The women begin a loving, lifelong partnership in Vienna, where they try to find a way to live as a couple. Under the protective wing of Frau Berndt, they create a new family of neighbors and friends, but Julia yearns for a child. The narrative shifts perspectives between Julia, Eve, and other key people in their lives. Ada Bauer is abused by her foster brother, Emil, with whom glamorous hustler Rolf Gruber falls in love. Ada receives treatment from Sigmund Freud, but the other characters don’t believe her claims about Emil; later, Ada and Rolf hatch a plot to help Julia realize her dreams. Hitchman makes good use of interwar bohemian Vienna, presenting it as a time capsule of relative permissiveness before the rise of the Nazis, though the happy ending after WWII feels far-fetched, and the cameos of such historical figures as Freud don’t add much to the narrative. Though there are some bright moments, little distinguishes this in a crowded field. Agent: Olivia Davies, United Agents.

December 1, 2021
Set in Vienna, Hitchman's historical novel traces the course of queer love and friendship over three tumultuous decades. In 1910, the Austro-Hungarian capital is the "greatest city in the Western Hemisphere," where "art and music flourish" and "Herr Doktor Freud" analyzes troubled minds. Among its newest arrivals are Eve Perret, a skilled tailor who dresses as a man, and the beautiful and spoiled Julia Lindqvist, who has left her Swedish playwright husband to be with Eve. With very little money, the couple settle in the Jewish quarter of Leopoldstadt, where their landlady, Frau Berndt, introduces them to fellow tenant Rolf Gruber, a flamboyant would-be theater impresario. After he helps Eve get a job, she discovers that he too is gay. "He is like us," she excitedly tells Julia. "He loves men." The two women gradually build a small community of friends and neighbors, but Julia's desire for a child overshadows their happiness. Shifting narrative perspectives, Hitchman also introduces 16-year-old Ada Bauer, who has a crush on her closeted cousin Emil's wife, Isabella. When Isabella becomes pregnant, Ada and Rolf, Emil's spurned lover, hatch a plot with life-altering consequences. Hitchman excels at capturing both the liberating permissiveness of turn-of-the-century Vienna and the city's paralyzing fear after Hitler's 1938 annexation of Austria, but the big time jump between 1913, when the novel's first part ends, and 1938 and then 1946 feels jarring. Her main characters are sympathetically drawn, but all are not given equal focus. The more compelling Eve receives less attention than the self-absorbed Julia; how did she cope as a butch lesbian when the Nazis began cracking down on Jews, homosexuals, and other "undesirables"? An engrossing, if flawed, novel.

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January 1, 2022

In 1910, Julia Lindqvist leaves her husband for his tailor, Eve Perret, a woman who dresses like a man. They run away to Vienna, hoping to find a place where they can safely be together. There they create a kind of family with the neighbors in their apartment building, as they struggle to build a new life. Frau Berndt, their landlady, becomes a confidante, while flamboyant Rolf becomes their best friend and entr�e into Vienna's queer community, with Gunther and Heidi rounding out their gatherings. Then Heidi gets pregnant, igniting in Julia a fierce desire to have a child and threatening her relationship with Eve. Meanwhile Rolf begins an affair with Emil, a married man who is part of the wealthy Bauer family. His cousin, Ada Bauer, starts seeing Dr. Freud after Emil's abuse causes an onset of mutism. When Emil's wife Isabella gets pregnant and he spurns Rolf, a chain of events is set in motion that will profoundly affect all of their lives. VERDICT Hitchman (Petite Mort) has written an absorbing novel of love and lust and found family that spans 1910 to 1946, a period when Vienna was a haven for queer couples, then turned dangerous when the Nazi Party ascended to power.--Melissa DeWild

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