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ISBN 978-0-9800330-2-1
When his twin brother dies in a car accident, Helmer is obliged to return from university life to take over his brother’s role on the small family farm, resigning himself to spending the rest of his days ‘with his head under a cow.’
The novel begins thirty years later with Helmer moving his invalid father upstairs to have him out of the way as he sparsely redecorates the downstairs, finally making it his own. Then one day Riet, the woman who had once been engaged to marry Helmer’s twin, appears and asks if she and her troubled eighteen-year-old son could come to live with them on the farm.
Ostensibly a novel about the countryside, The Twin is ultimately about the possibility or impossibility of taking life into one’s own hands. It chronicles a way of life that has resisted modernity, a world culturally apart yet laden with romantic longing.
An NPR pick for Best Foreign Fiction of 2009.
A School Library Journal Best Adult Book for High School Students, 2009.
Gerbrand Bakker's writing is fabulously clear, so clear that each sentence leaves a rippling wake.
"—Susan Reynolds, The Los Angeles Times
Stealthy seductive story-telling that draws you into a world of silent rage and quite unexpected relationships. Compelling and convincing from beginning to end.
"—Tim Parks
—Times Literary Supplement
—Truow
—Paul Binding
Stealthy seductive story-telling that draws you into a world of silent rage and quite unexpected relationships. Compelling and convincing from beginning to end.
"—Tim Parks
Bakker has a gift for investing daily rituals and landscape with the universal questions around identity and self worth. Helmer’s transformation affirms that it is never too late to take responsibility for one’s destiny. This is a beautifully written book - its lustre lies in the clear simplicity of language as well as the authenticity of Helmer’s internal dialogue.
"—Ruth Wildgust, The Sunday Business Post (Ireland)
A novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humor.
"—J.M. Coetzee
Bakker captures the feel of life in the Dutch countryside in a style which is both dazzling and subdued....a poignant story, recounted in a tone at once spare and loving.
"—De Volkskrant
1 Reader comment
A Wonderful Book
I read the UK edition of "The Twin" and am so pleased to see that it has found a home in the US. Sad, quiet Helmer is one of the most memorable characters I have come across in a long time. I look forward to seeing more translations of Bakker's work in the future.