How to Sell a Murder House

Standing empty and available to rent, this remote villa was allegedly once the scene of a murder. Now a deathly silence inhabits the walls, interrupted only by the quiet footfalls of woodland animals outside. Now and again a distant roar is heard: the sound of a society nearing its destruction. The house becomes the refuge of four different men on four different occasions. A mid-level manager wants to escape from the catastrophe of a market in free-fall. An average Joe struggles with the shame of having bought sex. An insecure father seeks sanctuary from his politically correct daughter. A nerd plans to transform himself into a gender-neutral cyborg, despite an unreliable electricity supply. Each becomes belatedly aware that this supposed safe house is nothing but a trap they have set for themselves, and that some tough women have had a role to play.

In How to Sell a Murder House, Sibylle Berg utilises discordant fragments from horror films and ghost stories, moulding them into a perfidious study of masculinity in crisis.