There’s no right way to deal with cancer. But somehow, there seem like a million wrong ways, especially if you’re a woman...What a relief, then, to read two new funny, angry, feminist novels that give women with cancer the freedom to behave in the way that’s right for them—even if that way is badly...It takes work to figure out how to read Craving, just as it takes work to read Elisabeth herself, but that work is extremely rewarding...I don’t know if I’ve ever read a novel that captures the emotional labor of people-pleasing language quite so well.” —New York Times Book Review
“Esther Gerritsen's characters have their own, extremely unique way of viewing the world.” —Vogue
“Diagnosed with a terminal illness, a mother known for her lack of empathy reunites with her daughter, but will the pair finally be able to connect? The U.S. debut of a prizewinning Dutch author offers a far from conventional response. Bizarre interior landscapes are exposed to the light in Gerritsen's off-kilter, at times blackly comic work of fiction. The baldness of its opening sets the tone, as Elisabeth de Wit unexpectedly encounters Coco, the adult daughter she rarely sees, on a busy street and seizes the moment to reveal she's dying of untreatable cancer. Gerritsen's searching story of alienation and separation may well engender discomfort in the reader, yet there's empathy too, especially in Elisabeth's slow fade from the picture. The lives of others, in all their peculiarity, are given sympathetic scrutiny in this diverting European oddity.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The handful of characters, circumscribed setting, and spare prose style effectively highlight the complexities of a mother-daughter incompatibility that is never quite resolved. Award-winner Gerrsiten’s first novel to be translated into English from the Dutch will appeal to readers interested in exploring world literature.” —ALA Booklist
“Funny, transparent, and complicated, Craving is a refreshingly honest portrayal of what can happen when a dysfunctional family faces sudden death. An extraordinary, haunting book, “Craving” is a short novel with staying power.” —The Gazette
“Ably translated into English for an appreciative American readership by Michele Hutchison, Craving showcases author Esther Gerritsen's sparse and lucid prose, and her genuine flair for absurdist logic and melancholy wit in the deft crafting of characters that are as recognizable as they are memorable.” —Midwest Book Review
You don’t realise quite how shrouded in sentimentality the cliched portrait of mother/daughter relationships can be in fiction, until you encounter the other thing. Dutch writer Esther Gerritsen has produced an unsettling close-up of emotional alienation brought to the surface through the pressure of reunion...It’s a confronting and coldedged, but still black comic, descent into destructive psychology and the abusive potential of love." —The Saturday Age
"Bleak humor and extended ruminations on mortality converge in Gerritsen’s novel about the fraught relationship between Elizabeth and her grown daughter, Coco—made even more complex when Elizabeth is diagnosed with terminal cancer. As Coco aims to care for her mother—not always succeeding—both women ponder their own frustrations with life, missed opportunities, and enduring connections.” —World Without Borders October Watchlist
“[Gerritsen] shows an almost surgical ability to slice to the bare nerves of difficult human relationships …Gerritsen’s voice is precise and spare. Elegiac, beautiful and very strong, it’s a novel you devour in one sitting, drawn into the vortex as the inevitable ending spins nearer.” —Daily Mail
"Cool, sparse, and delicious, Esther Gerritsen’s Craving hits all the right notes. This is an author who is unafraid of both complex characters and complex emotion (Thank God!).” —Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
“With its deceptively simple yet extraordinary language and its sophisticated humor, Craving is a small gem among recent Dutch literature.” —Herman Koch, author of The Dinner
“Funny, moving and memorable, Craving is a wryly observed novel about family, human frailties and how relationships fracture.” —Edinburgh International Book Festival
2018-08-21
Diagnosed with a terminal illness, a mother known for her lack of empathy reunites with her daughter, but will the pair finally be able to connect? The U.S. debut of a prizewinning Dutch author offers a far from conventional response.
Bizarre interior landscapes are exposed to the light in Gerritsen's off-kilter, at times blackly comic work of fiction. The baldness of its opening sets the tone, as Elisabeth de Wit unexpectedly encounters Coco, the adult daughter she rarely sees, on a busy street and seizes the moment to reveal she's dying of untreatable cancer. " ‘You're not likely to live a long time with something like this,' Elisabeth tells her daughter. ‘Not likely?' ‘Probably not.' ‘Christ.' ‘We'll call each other. Let's call. Yes? We'll call?' " Elisabeth found motherhood perplexing and uncomfortable, and after her marriage to Wilbert broke down, 5-year-old Coco spent six days a week with her father and stepmother. But now Coco wants to move back in with Elisabeth and take care of her. In cool prose and naturalistic dialogue, Gerritsen explores Elisabeth and Coco's restored proximity, their internal dialogues and idiosyncratic norms as they interact with each other and a small surrounding cast: Wilbert and his new wife, Miriam, Coco's boyfriend, Hans, Elisabeth's hairdresser, and her employer at a frame store. Mother and daughter make efforts to reach each other across an ingrained history of misunderstanding, but isolation seems immutable as each pursues her private trajectory, Coco's driven—dangerously—by her cravings, Elisabeth's by her corporeal state. Gerritsen's searching story of alienation and separation may well engender discomfort in the reader, yet there's empathy too, especially in Elisabeth's slow fade from the picture.
The lives of others, in all their peculiarity, are given sympathetic scrutiny in this diverting European oddity.
