"Julian Schutting's The Morning before the Journey sketches everyday Austrian life, seen through the protective, rose-lensed glasses of imaginary childhood siblings. Judith and Stephan's musings encompass a variety of subjects ranging from humorous, critical, and at times melancholy school and after-school experiences, to word-games and playfulness with language, to critical appraisals of art and unavoidably, as the sordid adult world seems to invade the pair's private, imaginary world in greater frequency, to threatening, gruesome scenes suggesting lewdness, brutality, violence, and youthful intimations of death."--BOOK JACKET.