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THE SPIEGEL BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF THE GERMAN BOOK PRIZE 2024

‘A triumph of sharp wit and profound humanity … A divine masterpiece’ Anne Weber

Juno Isabella Flock is a dancer and performance artist who spends her days caring for her ailing husband, and her nights chatting to love scammers online. She’s aware of the risks these men pose – she’s watched a documentary about them – but she’s also discovered a heady freedom in these online conversations, and the things they allow her to say.

When Juno meets Owen_Wilson223 – or, to use his real name, Benu – she senses an immediate connection between them, even though they’re separated by thousands of miles. Gradually, they reveal more and more about themselves to each other: about their real selves, and about who they really want to be. And just as Juno sees through Benu’s lies, he sees through hers too.

Hey, Good Morning, How Are You? is a whirlwind of a novel. It’s about yearning to stay young while age marches on; it’s about how to stay truthful while the internet changes everything; it’s about love and desire in all their many, conflicting forms. And most of all, it’s a novel about the way we are all connected, by the same constellations and the same night sky, however different our circumstances.

‘A book like a tightrope walk without a net: a sheer drop to the left, a sheer drop to the right, you want to look away but you can’t and you don’t need to, because as long as Martina Hefter is telling this story, as long as her thoughts are so luminous and life and desire are so intense, nothing can happen’ German Book Prize Jury 2024

‘[An] intelligently choreographed novel, which exerts an attraction of its very own’ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’

TRANSLATED BY LINDA L. GAUS

Publisher Review

A book like a tightrope walk without a net: a sheer drop to the left, a sheer drop to the right, you want to look away but you can’t and you don’t need to, because as long as Martina Hefter is telling this story, as long as her thoughts are so luminous and life and desire are so in- tense, nothing can happen * Anne Weber, winner of the German Book Prize 2020 * A triumph of sharp wit and profound humanity […] A divine master- piece * FAZ – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung * Navigating between melancholy and euphoria, and reflecting on trust and deception, the novel combines gruelling everyday life with mythological figures and cosmic dimensions in a fascinating way. Martina Hefter writes about all this in her intelligently choreographed novel, which exerts an attraction of its very own * German Book Prize Jury 2024 * A book that weaves atmospheric nuances into haunting images of tragedy and bliss, never slipping into sentimentality * NZZ * Deserves to be a bestseller * Die Zeit * Every line is ready to tear down the austere facade of society * Dincer Gucyeter, winner of the 2023 Leipzig Book Fair Prize * My book of the year. So sad and yet so funny, so elegant and tender […] about illness and old age and loneliness and the internet and the beauty of fiction. There hasn’t been a more worthy winner of the German Book Prize in a long time. * Daniel Kehlmann, author of Measuring the World * A humorous yet profound prism of privileges, caring for seriously ill dependents, and the precariousness facing freelance artists * Spiegel Kultur * The novel’s great strength is its lightness. Hefter evokes the disparate everyday interplay of physical decline and romantic longing so entertainingly and elegantly that every detail begins to sparkle through her narrative art * Simone Unger, mdr * An exceptional novel that is both profound and nimble * Nurnberger Zeitung *