At one point during Wieringa's novel, his unlikely hero, Paul Kruzen reflects; "All cynical people have a broken heart, I guess, but not all broken hearts grow cynical." And there you have it as, despite being unceremoniously abandoned by his mother, Paul demonstrates a commitment and devotion to his loved ones-namely his father and his dear friend Hedwigges. Looked over by the patron saint of lost causes, Saint Rita, these three solitary souls are lost in the modern world; apparently frozen in time in their childhood homes as their village bulges and morphs around them.

Indeed, Paul is more consumed with hauntings of the past than he is prepared for the future:
* "the beams had borne the weight of this house's roof, and of the farmers who'd hanged themselves from them throughout the centuries"
*"his father's hands were folded in his lap. His scalp, covered in little cuts and scabs, shone through the thin white hair. A life without him was unimaginable."

What is particularly remarkable about this book though, is Sam Garrett's translation in which none of the author's dreamlike foreboding is lost;
"The darkness faded to a Prussian blue, the stars paled. The shadows lengthened and everything turned to liquid gold-the forests, fields and villages below him, a sensation he remembered from the times he had taken off at the crack of dawn."

Furthermore, the characters crouch in the corners of the page in a way that left me feeling that they may still be there on the fringes of the next tale I read-at once the stuff of fairytales and those confined to the margins of society;
"They were as old as trees, the brothers were, and just as friendly. 'We're so old,' they said in voices that creaked, 'that noone knows how old we are...They had tinkered with time, the two of them, until finally it had stopped working."

My thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for sharing an advance copy of this book with me in return for my honest opinion.

I found this a really compelling read, an original character study of an aging man in a small Dutch village, whose life seems to have passed him by, a moving portrait of a man left behind by the modern world which is overturning all his certainties. Paul Kruzen, in his 50s, lives with and cares for his elderly father, and each day is much like the previous one. It always was a quiet life and now, with so many people having left the village, those who remain seem at odds with the new globalised world, exemplified by the Chinese, Poles and Russians who have made it their temporary home. Paul is hurt and damaged by the past, especially his mother’s abandonment when he was a small child, the present is bleak and the future hopeless. He has a friend, or rather someone he is used to being with, but Hedwige himself is just as much an outsider. It’s a poignant tale of loneliness and disappointment which even the efforts of Saint Rita, the patron saint of lost causes, can do little to alleviate. Well written, with insight and empathy, this poignant tale made a real impact on me. Highly recommended.