Starred review from March 31, 2014
In Koch’s equally devious follow-up to The Dinner, civilization is once again only a thin cover-up for man’s baser instincts. This time out, we meet Dr. Marc Schlosser, whose practice includes a new patient, veteran TV and stage actor Ralph Meier. At a party, Marc doesn’t like the way Ralph looks at his wife, Caroline. So when Marc and his family are invited to spend part of their vacation at Ralph’s summer house (with swimming pool), Marc reluctantly accepts. There, his family mingles with Ralph’s family, as well as houseguests Stanley Forbes, a film director, and his much younger girlfriend. The air is rife with sexual tension as Ralph showers too much attention on Marc’s underage daughter, Julia, and Marc toys with having an affair with Ralph’s wife, Judith. Then tragedy strikes. One year later, through a confluence of events, Ralph is dead and Marc is implicated. Over the course of the novel, the truth about what really happened that summer is revealed. Although Koch, by his own admission, is not a mystery writer, he once again succeeds on that count without ever stinting on literary quality. And though it’s a bit too long, make no mistake: very few real-world events will distract readers from finishing this addictive book in one or two sittings.
May 1, 2014
English-language readers were first exposed to Dutch author Koch's work last year with the release of The Dinner, a best seller currently being adapted into a film. Koch's wry wit and sardonic approach to marriage and children transformed a grisly act of violence into fodder for parental and ethical contemplation. Here, he once again probes the limits of parental protection. Dr. Marc Schlosser is a general physician with a client list of celebrities. When the opportunity arises, Marc takes his family on vacation with a patient and his group of friends. However, the holiday ends abruptly when tragedy befalls one of Marc's children. Exploring a number of radical hypothetical possibilities--and imagined revenge plots--Marc and his wife are ultimately left with more questions than answers. At the heart of the novel's darkness is Marc's ethical dubiousness, infidelity, and misunderstanding of fatherhood. VERDICT As in The Dinner, Koch continues to illuminate ways in which our Freudian unconscious takes dreadful revenge on the ego, often disproportionate to the perceived slight. [See Prepub Alert, 12/16/13.]--Joshua Finnell, Denison Univ. Lib., Granville, OH
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 1, 2014
Just as he did in his bestseller, The Dinner (2013), Dutch novelist Koch tells a sinister tale through the eyes of a questionable narrator. Marc Schlosser is a physician whose reputation as a concerned and thoughtful listener has brought him high-end clientele. One patient is Ralph Meier, an imposing theater actor suffering from terminal cancer. Marc assists him in his suicide in the opening pages and then looks back to share the events leading up to Ralph's death, beginning when Marc and his wife, Carolyn, attend a performance of Ralph's. The actor and his wife, Judith, invite Marc, Carolyn, and their two daughters to spend some time at their summer house with them and their sons. Though Carolyn is put off by the way Ralph looks at her, Marc's attraction to Judith ultimately leads to the Schlossers accepting the Meiers' offer. The decision has devastating repercussions for both families. It's a slow burn, but Koch's deft and nuanced exploration of gender, guilt, and vengeance make his second novel to be translated into English an absorbing read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)