Recent debates on the success of a new brand of family novels emphasize the difference between the Vääterliteratur of the 1970s, which posited a rupture between the generations, and new family narratives based on generational continuity. In texts such as Grass's Im Krebsgang, this continuity is expressed as a trans-generational transfer of trauma adapted from stories written from a Jewish perspective. This article argues that a cultural re-evaluation of victimhood runs in parallel to the creation of male characters who fail to meet expectations. It concentrates on Geiger's Es geht uns gut and Rabinovici's Suche nach M. which also tackle the specifically Austrian discourse of victimhood. Finally, the tension between realistic and non-realistic writing strategies is discussed in order to explore the possibility of a productive engagement with traumas of the past.