Berlin is changing. Economic inequality is spiralling out of control and as tech conglomerates move in, hoovering up remaining affordable housing, the party is moving on. Anja and Louis live on the mountain – an artificial, self-regulating eco-community powered by trash and built and run by the corporation Anja works for, Finster. It is an experiment in green living which doubles as an exercise in greenwashing. But soon enough the mountain begins to malfunction, with trash threatening to burst from the walls. Across the city, the weather becomes increasingly unpredictable. At work, Louis has become obsessed with a secret project: a pill called Oval that temporarily rewires the user’s brain to be more generous. While Anja is horrified, Louis believes he has found the solution to Berlin’s income inequality. OVAL asks how we can relate to one another, when our every relationship – to our friends, to our bodies, to bureaucracy – is leveraged in ways we don’t truly understand. It is a novel about what the future might look like, if we put it up for sale.