"Palliser manages to keep up the tension as his narrative drives to its tragic, unsettling end. A cynical story about how, in the absence of moral courage, terror and self-preservation can also be powerful motivators." —Kirkus
"Palliser’s novel shares some superficial similarities with last year’s Booker winner, Prophet Song – a family in crisis navigating an authoritarian regime – but is a more well developed and satisfying work." — The Guardian
"A sinister undertone lurks throughout the narrative, and a real sense of doom overshadows. In the father, Palliser has created a rare character who in turns can be sympathetic and contemptible. His story races to an ending that leaves the reader stunned. This novel will evoke a full range of emotions. An impressive novel not to be missed." — Historical Novels Review
Sufferance could well become a contemporary classic. — Spectator
"The simple prose with which the story unfolds only adds to the sinister feel of this skillfully crafted, dark little tale." —What Cathy Read Next
When so much has been said about the Holocaust, a novel that provides a new perspective is to be welcomed. In Sufferance, Charles Palliser has made that terrible event horrifying but also universalised it and by doing so suggested that it could happen again in any country. The novel conveys the psychological claustrophobia of a family and its unwelcome guest as the murderous trap closes on them, tearing the family apart even as it faces the approaching terror.
Sufferance is compulsive reading. It is shocking, gripping. The key is the narrator, the reader’s own shadow, and a man who turns out to be unreliable. He is weak and clings to an ambition that becomes daily more unrealistic. This is a story that floats in Everywhere/Nowhere territory, with a few locational clues but ultimately universal—a parable for our times, a cautioning horror story, like the frog in the slow boiler, unaware until its final moments.
Sufferance could well become a contemporary classic.
Palliser skilfully creates a sense of mounting dread and paranoia in a disturbing Kafka-esque parable.
Disturbing and distressing—but in the best possible way. Times like these call for strong medicine. The narrator reminded me very much of the old adage about the frog in a pot with the temperature being raised in very tiny, gradual increments—never becoming aware of the danger until it is too late. This is a small book that packs a big punch—I am grateful to have read it. People everywhere need to do so, and especially in the places where self-reflection is least encouraged and most desperately required.
A sinister undertone lurks throughout the narrative, and a real sense of doom overshadows. In the father, Palliser has created a rare character who in turns can be sympathetic and contemptible. His story races to an ending that leaves the reader stunned. This novel will evoke a full range of emotions. An impressive novel not to be missed.
The publication is good timing: Palliser’s novel shares some superficial similarities with last year’s Booker winner, Prophet Song – a family in crisis navigating an authoritarian regime – but is a more well developed and satisfying work. The slow escalation of pressure on its characters up to an extraordinary ending shows the hand of an expert novelist.
The publication is good timing: Palliser’s novel shares some superficial similarities with last year’s Booker winner, Prophet Song – a family in crisis navigating an authoritarian regime – but is a more well developed and satisfying work. The slow escalation of pressure on its characters up to an extraordinary ending shows the hand of an expert novelist.
2024-03-23
Sympathy may be a virtue, but it can also get you into plenty of trouble.
The author, who established himself as a maker of intricate puzzles with his first novel, The Quincunx (1989), provides another in this wartime tale of a family’s efforts to protect a young girl from a vicious enemy. This is not a portrait of World War II Europe or a fictionalized account of Anne Frank’s life. Palliser is interested less in external details than in the situation’s psychological aspect, exploring the pressures building inside an ordinary family plunged into an extraordinary situation. The narrator, an unnamed bookkeeper in an unnamed European city, describes the invasion of his country and the way one of his younger daughter’s schoolmates comes to live with them. The girl’s wealthy parents, who are on a trip, have been cut off by the invasion. The narrator feels sorry for her, but his feelings are hardly altruistic. He hopes the girl’s father “would be so grateful that he would reward me with a well-paid post” when he returns. The girl, who seems appreciative at first, proves to be a master manipulator with a “mere veneer of charm” who sets the family members against each other. Though they realize they’ve made a mistake, they hesitate to send her home. They’ve already told too many lies to snooping neighbors and worry about being found out. They also cling to the hope of getting a reward even when it’s clear this isn’t going to happen. The girl belongs to an unspecified ethnic community targeted for destruction by the country’s new “puppet dictatorship,” whose sinister plan is hidden behind a seemingly beneficial agenda. Palliser gradually tightens the screws in various ways and the family keeps hiding the girl not out of any deep moral sense but because it’s too late to do anything else. Some readers may feel this plot could have been explored in a novella or short story, but Palliser manages to keep up the tension as his narrative drives to its tragic, unsettling end.
A cynical story about how, in the absence of moral courage, terror and self-preservation can also be powerful motivators.
