My Class Always Hovered Over Me

»White trash«, »ragamuffin«, »peasant« – those are just a few of the slurs that Eva Müller’s protagonist was called all the time by other children when she was younger. Scolding words with which she, who did not come from a privileged background, was ostracised and which were meant to put her in her place.

In this autofictional graphic novel she tells her own story and the story of her family. In clear, powerful, impressive images of astonishing aesthetic variety, she depicts her grandparents’ rural origins, her parents’ working-class milieu in West Germany, the experience of growing up uneducated and poor, social shame, the stench of deep-frying fat, her cheap clothes with silly patches, her alienation from her origins and finally her emancipation as an artist – and the snake of self-doubt as a constant companion that, regardless of her success, still won’t leave her side.

»In black and white, often gruff, sometimes seductively beautiful images, Müller tells of a youth without money and without books ... My Class Always Hovered Over Me is not as crass as, say, the works of Édouard Louis, but the characters and their circumstances are more familiar.« Martina Knoben, Süddeutsche Zeitung

»This [graphic novel] is more than a story told in speech bubbles, [it] is a drawn novel, a great sophisticated pleasure.« Sebastian Hammelehle, Der Spiegel

»Eva Müller finds impressive images for the fight against prejudice. A witty addition: Karl Marx in the guise of a hipster commenting on social injustices, which are as relevant today as they were in his time.« Silke Merten, Der Tagesspiegel

»Eva Müller has succeeded in creating an impressive work with her finely crafted, structurally interesting and varied drawings and the detailed personal milieu study with a historical background.« Amelie Persson, Missy Magazin

»In My Class Always Hovered Over Me, Eva Müller shows the arduous journey of casting of the shame of one’s origins ...« Jonas Engelmann, neues deutschland

»[My Class Always Hovered Over Me] vividly shows how working-class or lower-middle-class children face exclusion when they embark on the rocky path of educational advancement – yesterday as well as today!« rbbKultur

»Superb! A very accessible graphic novel on the subject of classism that fosters empathy. The book can help many people understand why it is so hard to leave one’s class behind.« Marie Kaiser, radioeins rbb