Summer House with Swimming Pool
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4.5 • 19 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
When a medical procedure goes horribly wrong and famous actor Ralph Meier winds up dead, Dr Marc Schlosser needs to come up with some answers. After all, reputation is everything in this business. Personally, he's not exactly upset that Ralph is gone, but as a high profile doctor to the stars, Marc can't hide from the truth forever.
It all started the previous summer. Marc, his wife, and their two beautiful teenage daughters agreed to spend a week at the Meier's extravagant summer home on the Mediterranean. Joined by Ralph and his striking wife Judith, her mother, film director Stanley Forbes and his much younger girlfriend, the large group settles in for days of sunshine, wine tasting, and trips to the beach. But when a violent incident disrupts the idyll, darker motivations are revealed, and suddenly no one can be trusted. As the ultimate holiday soon turns into a nightmare, the circumstances surrounding Ralph's (later) death begin to reveal the disturbing reality behind that summer's tragedy.
Featuring the razor-sharp humour and acute psychological insight that made The Dinner an international phenomenon, Summer House with Swimming Pool is a controversial, thought-provoking novel that showcases Herman Koch at his finest.
Herman Koch was born in 1953. He is a successful actor, screenwriter and columnist in the Netherlands, and has written a number of satirical novels, including The Dinner (2011) which became an international bestseller. The Dinner was adapted for stage and screen in the Netherlands and an English language film adaptation to be directed by Cate Blanchett has recently been announced.
'Scary...brilliant...I just couldn't put it down.' Economist
'Once again Koch shows us, in that keen, almost icy style, how easy it is for successful people to go haywire.' Glamour
'Dizzying and poetic, a book the reader will think about long after the last page has been turned.' Algemeen Dagblad
'Extremely suspenseful, skillfully written, surprising, hilarious, indicative of these times.' Vrij Nederland
'Koch has written a novel full of tense undercurrents, wonderful characters and spot-on observations.' Veronica
'Fast, satirical and with a rock-solid plot.' Metro
'Summer House with Swimming Pool is a story ingeniously told, in which Koch turns the spotlight of his imagination in deliciously cynical fashion on the world of medicine and of Famous Dutch People.' Het Parool
'A wonderful, timely novel of manners. An incredible read.' Trouw
'After the resounding success of The Dinner, Herman Koch comes with a new novel, Summer House with Swimming Pool, in which moral issues are tackled in a delightful fashion.' Red
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
