Až zhasneme – Dotlačil Jakub (2019)

Maybe you wanted to have an avant-garde band, study literature, and make love, but in the end, you are just a pebble in the marketing pyramid. Jakub Dotlačil's novel When We Turn Off the Lights returns to the somewhat mythologized nineties of the "wild party." However, Dotlačil's nineties are not exactly party-glamorous; on the contrary, they are a bit "meat." The main character, Jan, studies Czech literature at a time when studying means nothing, and the most important thing is to seize opportunities. He mainly seizes them through his uncle — one of the partners from a privatized meat processing plant in an unnamed North Bohemian town. Jan gets into the business as a summer intern. The meat grinder, which starts with live cows and ends with sausages, is far from just a metaphor for the dramatic social changes of the transformation period. The plot of the novel intersects with several contemporary cases; former naivety and illusions are recalled in several destinies. However, behind the thrilling and well-crafted economic plot lies a deeper generational testimony, a melancholic witness to how the nineties shaped us into striving citizens of a capitalist state.