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stevienlcf 's review for:
Summer House with Swimming Pool
by Herman Koch
No one writes more venal human beings than Herman Koch. In his follow-up to “The Dinner,” Koch presents Marc Schlosser, M.D., the narrator of this tale, a general practitioner who finds his patients and their maladies distasteful. The novel opens with Schlosser being accused of professional negligence leading to the death of Ralph Meier, a corpulent, but popular, screen and stage actor who had consulted Schlosser after learning that he freely prescribed painkillers to celebrities. Meier invites Schlosser to a performance of Richard II and, although Meier regards the doctor’s wife, Caroline, as “something edible, something that made his mouth water,” a friendship is formed between the couple and Meier and his wife, Judith. To say that they “get caught up in the typical dynamics of a group holiday rental,” is an understatement. The trip is laced with sexual tension, equal parts adultery and pedophilia. Meier and his buddy, a well-known director with a penchant for nubile young women, stalk the comely women at the local bars and act inappropriately with Schlosser’s pre-teen daughters. When the eldest of the girls is assaulted on the beach, Schlossser’s imagine works overtime as he tries to imagine who was the rapist. Like an accident, you cannot turn away from this dark, cynical story and Schlosser’s grotesque commentary.