Love, so to speak
Alex Jespers, the author of a phenomenally successful novel, but now past his prime, realises that he has an almost impossible job on his hands trying to explain how, more than twenty years ago, he got caught up in a love triangle with Jasper and Kristien Fielinckx – a brother and sister who lost their parents in a car accident when they were teenagers.
As an old friend with literary ambitions, Jasper feels attracted to the long-suffering Alex, but his sister Kristien also wants something from the homosexual writer, something other men are evidently unable to offer her. Between brother and sister there seems to be nothing but venom, as if they blame one another for their parents' death.
A vivid and tantalising novel which is almost NabokovianDe Morgen
‘Love, So To Speak’ is a stylistic, inimitable dark game between three characters in search of a foothold in a rocky life. Whether love can offer them that is very much the question.
‘When I think back to the past, I see no light – at most the pattern of will-o’-the-wisps we were to each other.’
Every single sentence is assured and effective, from the briefest reflection to the most drawn-out paragraphDe Volkskrant
