New novel “Lemons”: Made sick by your own mother – culture

In “Lemons,” Austrian author Valerie Fritsch describes a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy: a mother intentionally weakens her child so that she can take on the role of caring nurse. A book full of violence and love in equal measure.

At first, things look good: his violent father, who had repeatedly beaten August Drach when he was a small child, has taken off. From now on, August lives alone with his mother Lilly, who had always comforted him after his father had beaten him.

As it turns out, this role as a caring comforter was the only way for her to show August affection. As soon as the father left, mother and son became increasingly estranged from each other.

At least until August comes down with a bad cold and fever. With his illness, Lilly finds her way back to her life’s work: she takes care of him, takes him to the doctor and has the village confirm what an exemplary mother she is. When the doctor then declares August healthy, the really shocking part of this story begins.

Mistreating your own child

Lilly convinces her son that he is still sick and that he needs to take it easy. She gives him mysterious pills that make him weaker and more tired every time he takes them – for years until August is a young man. At that point he already perceived his physical weakness as real and a given.

Lilly Drach suffers from what is known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy. This is a rare disorder that affects mothers in around 95% of cases, who mistreat their children as a result – convince them that they are sick or actively make them sick – for example by poisoning them. This is done deliberately, and always in such a way that, during medical examinations, the children’s suffering is thought to be a “real” mysterious illness.

Only separation helps

Georg Staubli, the senior doctor at the child protection center at the Zurich Children’s Hospital, considers the story of the Drach family in Valerie Fritsch’s novel “Lemons” to be almost prototypical. According to him, the syndrome occurs very rarely: out of around 700 cases of child abuse that are treated in his center, there is only one to five cases per year that there is a concrete suspicion of it.

“The only way to help these children is to separate mother and child,” says Staubli. It often turns out that during inpatient treatment they suddenly get better as if by magic, “and this then raises the suspicion that the illness is brought on from outside. Then we have to inform the authorities.”

Between love and violence

Despite its rarity, Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a particularly serious form of child abuse because the victims learn as children that their artificially created illness is “normal”. In such cases, it is up to the doctors to be attentive and listen to the child, “although as pediatricians we usually have to believe the parents’ information,” says Georg Staubli.

In her novel, Valerie Fritsch lets us look deep into the depths surrounding the mother’s mental illness: she describes the tension between love and violence that shaped August Drach’s life with extraordinary vividness. She has thus created a literary work of art that, despite its heavy fare, is highly recommended.