WINNER – THE IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
A novel of restrained tenderness and laconic humor. —J.M. Coetzee
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
This is a novel of great brilliance and subtlety. It contains scenes of enveloping psychological force . . . its extraordinary last section suggesting that fulfillment of long-standing aspirations can arrive, unanticipated, in late middle-age. —Paul Binding
I have rarely been so captivated by a voice. The plot of this unusual novel is simple, but its power is mysterious. Gerbrand Bakker’s tone and language make the despondent yet valiant narrator utterly authentic and the plain rural setting mesmerizing. The family drama has the quality of myth, yet remains rooted in daily reality, so much so that I responded with the innocent surrender of a child reader: I had lived on that Dutch farm and shared the characters’ tragedies and small triumphs. This is a book that restores one’s faith in meticulous realism. —Lynne Sharon
Schwartz I found The Twin, by Gerbrand Bakker, sitting on a coffee table at a writers’ colony in 2009. I finished it, weeping, a day later, and have been puzzling over its powerful hold on me ever since. I’ve recommended it again and again. —Amy Waldman, All Things Considered, NPR
This is a quiet book, humble in tone, with a fine, self-deprecating humour […] It leaves the reader touched and with the impression of having seen and smelled the ever-damp Dutch platteland. —Times Literary Supplement
“Oh, it’s about to get so cozy and redemptive, you might think; never too late for a sad man to get his groove back! Bakker’s sparse, prickly novel doesn’t play that way, though. Instead, it ducks and swerves . . . The “happy” ending isn’t exactly confetti and jazz hands, either; it’s more freighted than that — but more satisfying, too, for being earned.” — Leah Greenblatt, New York Times
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