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A review by durrenmatt
De saamhorigheidsgroep by Merijn de Boer
5.0
Shortlisted for the 2021 Libris Literatuurprijs (for Dutch language literature).
It is difficult to say why I liked this novel so much. It is not innovative in form or style, but it has an intriguing plot, lots of humour and a good love story at its core. It was a real pageturner for me.
It is the story of 65-year old diplomat Bernard Wekman, whom we meet when he is the Dutch Ambassador to the UN, but about to retire and move back to the Netherlands. A visit from an old friend and a flirt with a young colleague bring back memories of 35 years earlier, when he was a member of a ‘solidarity group’ in the 1980s whose left-wing members hug and sing and spend 10% of their income on projects in developing countries. The rest of the book is one big flashback, only to return to the present day and reveal what happened in the interim at the very end.
It is difficult to say why I liked this novel so much. It is not innovative in form or style, but it has an intriguing plot, lots of humour and a good love story at its core. It was a real pageturner for me.
It is the story of 65-year old diplomat Bernard Wekman, whom we meet when he is the Dutch Ambassador to the UN, but about to retire and move back to the Netherlands. A visit from an old friend and a flirt with a young colleague bring back memories of 35 years earlier, when he was a member of a ‘solidarity group’ in the 1980s whose left-wing members hug and sing and spend 10% of their income on projects in developing countries. The rest of the book is one big flashback, only to return to the present day and reveal what happened in the interim at the very end.