Friday, February 11, 2011

Friday Find: The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker


The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker

Book Description from Amazon:

Henk was more popular and athletic than Helmer, his identical twin, while growing up on a small rural Netherlands farm. Henk was their father's favorite son. Naturally lovely Riet chooses to marry him instead of Helmer. After Henk dies in an auto accident a couple of months before the wedding, Helmer is forced to leave college and return to the family farm. With deep bitterness, he spends days mucking the stalls and milking cows. Now, 37 years later, Helmer moves his invalid father upstairs to get him out of the way and slowly transforms the living space to be more suitable for a bachelor. After a few correspondences from recently widowed Riet, Helmer agrees to take in her teenage son. She feels that hard farm work will give him some direction. Colmer's superb translation allows the novel's authentic voice to be heard by American readers. Bakker captures Helmer's true feelings with excellent inner dialogue. His ongoing feud with his father instills an unusual bond between the two. 

4 comments:

Deepali said...

Poor helmer!
Interesting story - did you enjoy it?

FeatheredQuillBookReviews said...

Mucking stalls? Now that I can relate to - I do it every day. Sounds like a good book. Here are my Finds: http://is.gd/NExRgm

bermudaonion said...

I'm fascinated with twin stories, so this sounds good!

Jon said...

Just hopping by today. Great quote from Kafka. I'm not sure I want to be wounded and stabbed, but I do like to find books that make me think about things differently.
The Steel Bookshelf