A family drama unfolds in a wealthy housing estate in Belgian author de Coster's first novel to be translated into English. De Coster is a smart, witty writer with a real talent for storytelling” —Kirkus Reviews
"Saskia de Coster’s We and Me is a great dark beauty, and simultaneously, a true original and a reminder of why that endangered species, the novel, remains essential: no other narrative form is so expansive, so complex, so human, and so true." —Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours
“For people who love Franzen.” —Three Percent
“For years the most stubborn, capricious, and attractive pen of Belgium.” —Tom Lanoye, author of Speechless
“The Great Flemish Novel is not dead. It has just been written by Saskia de Coster. We and Me is a novel that will haunt me for a long time. Excellent and unforgettable.” —Herman Koch, author of The Dinner
“As sharp as a knife and with great psychological insight the author investigates the ‘we’ feeling versus the longing for freedom and individuality. Sarah is a contemporary Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina We and Me is like a breath of fresh air, because of its content as well as its virtuous form and fluent, ironic style.” —Opzij Literature Prize
“Reminiscent of Jonathan Coe’s What a Carve Up, Saskia de Coster sends up the Belgian professional class. With piercing observation and wry comment, she depicts the inner insecurities behind the confident façade.” —Geoff Crocker on Amazon
“Tender and cruel, Saskia de Coster unravels the illusions of social climbers, in a novel that shows that every unhappy family is still unhappy in its own way.” —Tommy Wieringa, author of These are the Names
“Readers will be thrilled by the eccentric Vandersanden family, and will find plenty of escapism in the green hills of 1980s Belgium. A certain European-ness permeates the novel, which can only add to its appeal. Great American Novels by writers such as Franzen, Dave Eggers and Jeffrey Eugenides remain a strong trend among UK fiction readers, and We and Me could quite easily be considered the European equivalent. de Coster [has] psychological insight, wit and fluency” —Bill Godber, UK Bookseller, "Book of the Month"
“The book provides a wonderfully witty narrative about family relationships that everyone will be able to relate to in some way: an incredibly accessible novel that is hugely entertaining.” —Buzz
“We and Me, despite being mostly set in Belgium, seems to me very much in the tradition of "The Great American Novel": a family at the centre, an extended timespan, a backdrop of key events and some universal questions about humanity. De Coster paints a devastating picture of the modern day nuclear family, revealing how loneliness can be threaded through the most intimate relationships of all. At [de Coster’s] best she gets inside the heads of her characters to the extent that the whole world and the images used to portray it are coloured and slanted by their specific neuroses and concerns.” —The Writes of Woman
“De Coster delights in bathos, frequently undercutting her creations’ pretensions or delusions with sharp one liners that stay just the right side of bitter...a bold and daring book. We and Me contains startling truths about the way we live and die. To read this story is to be changed by it.” —A Year of Reading the World
“A glimpse into the world of the rich elite and their cocooned lives in luxe suburban homes. Just as you might expect the shining exterior is not all as it seems.” —Jera’s Jamboree
2018-08-21
A family drama unfolds in a wealthy housing estate in Belgian author de Coster's first novel to be translated into English.
If the family is the basic unit of society, is the family drama the basic unit of fiction? Maybe not—but it's not going anywhere. De Coster's take on the oft-visited genre lands us in a mountain housing estate near Flanders. Uptight Mieke is the mother, doleful Stefaan is the father, and rebellious Sarah is their daughter. They're an upper-class family with their own fair share of demons: Mieke's brother seems to be involved in uncouth business dealings; Sarah seems to flirt with an eating disorder; and Stefaan is in danger of falling into a family pattern of depression and suicide. The novel begins in 1980 and ends in 2013; in between, Sarah grows up, and Mieke and Stefaan grow older, but it's hard to say whether anyone in the story really grows as a person. These are rather hateful characters; there isn't much to admire about any one of them—and after Stefaan engages in some violence later in the book, it's hard to even sympathize with his inner struggles. De Coster is a smart, witty writer with a real talent for storytelling, but she seems to rush through the big stuff—big emotions, big changes—which makes it harder to really believe in her invented worlds. The novel alternates between Mieke's, Stefaan's, and Sarah's points of view, but there is also occasional reference to a plural "we," a kind of invisible Greek-style chorus ("We climb the mountain slowly"; "We step away from the path to the front door"; "It charges us with energy and passion"). Unfortunately, these "we" moments occur too occasionally; they seem to be a quirk of the storytelling, an ill-thought-out afterthought more than anything else.
By blurring over psychological complexity, de Coster makes it more difficult to sympathize with her taxing characters.
